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Calculating Word Count for Website Translation
Thread poster: Lamine Boukabour
Lamine Boukabour
Lamine Boukabour  Identity Verified
Algeria
Local time: 03:40
Member (2022)
English to Arabic
Oct 16, 2023

Hello fellow translators,

I hope this message finds you well. I've recently been tasked with translating an English website for a client, but the content is not extracted into Word files or any easily countable format. I need to determine the word count to provide a cost estimate.

I'm wondering if any of you have experience with such situations and could offer guidance on the most effective way to calculate the word count of a website. Additionally, if you have any tips... See more
Hello fellow translators,

I hope this message finds you well. I've recently been tasked with translating an English website for a client, but the content is not extracted into Word files or any easily countable format. I need to determine the word count to provide a cost estimate.

I'm wondering if any of you have experience with such situations and could offer guidance on the most effective way to calculate the word count of a website. Additionally, if you have any tips on how to approach website translations efficiently, I'd greatly appreciate your insights.

Regards,
Lamine ▲ Collapse
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 03:40
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Lamine Oct 16, 2023

Lamine Boukabour wrote:
The content is not extracted into Word files or any easily countable format. I need to determine the word count to provide a cost estimate.

It's not going to be easy or possible to determine a cost estimate unless someone (you or the client) gets a hold of files that contain all the translatable text. You could copy the text to Word yourself, but then you run the [very real] risk that you might miss some pages that may have a lot of text on them.

There are tools that "extract" or "download" all pages on a website, but those tools worked best with websites of 20 years ago that were structured in a simple way. Modern websites do not fare well in website downloading tools. Also, such a tool will download the pages in HTML format, which may not be the format that the client would want the translation to be done in. And you'd have to trust your CAT tool to count words in HTML files correctly. Examples of such tools are Cyotek's WebCopy, HTTrack (opensource) and Site Sucker for Mac. You'd also have to experiment with getting to know the settings of those programs, to ensure that you download only the correct content.

[Edited at 2023-10-16 10:18 GMT]

Yossi Rozenman
Philippe Etienne
 
Zea_Mays
Zea_Mays  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 03:40
English to German
+ ...
Work with the client's webmaster Oct 16, 2023

or the IT team. They should be able to provide you all the required files.
This is most important for the user interface (UI), for which they'll provide you with string files. For those, you'll charge by the hour, not by word.

Morano El-Kholy
Yossi Rozenman
 
Lamine Boukabour
Lamine Boukabour  Identity Verified
Algeria
Local time: 03:40
Member (2022)
English to Arabic
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you all Oct 16, 2023

Samuel Murray and Zea_Mays, your valuable inputs are greatly appreciated!
 
expressisverbis
expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 02:40
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
It may be useful: Oct 19, 2023

You can find many Word Counter Websites on the Web:

https://translatepress.com/web-page-word-counter-websites/
 
Lamine Boukabour
Lamine Boukabour  Identity Verified
Algeria
Local time: 03:40
Member (2022)
English to Arabic
TOPIC STARTER
expressisverbis Oct 20, 2023

Thank you for the valuable link.

expressisverbis
 
Jennifer Levey
Jennifer Levey  Identity Verified
Chile
Local time: 23:40
Spanish to English
+ ...
Suggested reading... Oct 22, 2023

https://www.proz.com/forum/trados_support/324647-website_word_count.html#2722472

HTH
JL
 
Lamine Boukabour
Lamine Boukabour  Identity Verified
Algeria
Local time: 03:40
Member (2022)
English to Arabic
TOPIC STARTER
Much appreciated Oct 22, 2023

Thank you @Jennifer for providing me with this insightful source.
 


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Calculating Word Count for Website Translation






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