Wordcounter package in LaTeX?

Question

I have found a lot of suggestions, mentioning programs and other form of software excluding a direct package in LaTeX. Do you have to use the PDF-word counter or another program to count words?

Isn't it possible to tell the amoung of words like by using a package? For example "usepackage{wordcounter}" and "begin{count} (...) end{count}"? It would be more easily for me using an package and command in LaTeX to count words, than using a program outside the LaTeX world. If I for example have to correct my document, and I have to do it a lot, it takes a lot of time to copy my text into another program. It would be easier, if I just had to compile the correct text twice - and than have the correct among of words.

So is there those kind of package? Or a smart method to count words?

Answer 1

There are already some links and a good answer by Clément available, so I can just supplement it.

I vaguely recall seeing a long time ago a LaTeX package that aimed to do this, but as I recall it was very fragile and wouldn't work on my document.

Most word counting scripts will process the tex files directly, so no copy-pasting is required. However, they will have to be run separately.

An option, as has already been explained in the previously posted answer referred to by Clément, you may be able to run the word count script from the TeX document and import the result. To do this using TeXcount, there are explanations in the FAQ on how to run TeXcount from your TeX code, and how to include the result in the typeset document. This should get the word count included into your document every time you typeset.