Comments on: TextEdit Word Count with Automator

By: pi

pi — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:00:55 +0000

If you modify the script to this:

set word_count to count words of (input as string)
set character_count to count characters of (input as string)
display alert “” & word_count & ” words
” & character_count & ” characters”

… it will print the word as well as the character count (including whitespaces).

By: MrsD

MrsD — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 06:48:28 +0000

Brilliant! It was so easy to do, and worked perfectly the first time.
Thank you so much for taking the time to put this together for the rest of us who DON’T have any programming in our backgrounds!

By: Jordy

Jordy — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 02:02:48 +0000

If you want to keep it all in Automator, you could do something like what I’ve done:

Make a service in automator that receives selected text (in TextEdit or “any application”)

Then add a Run Shell Script step with the command:
wc -w

Then add a Speak Text command in the voice you choose.

Now when you choose the service (I do it with command shift C), it will speak the number of words you’ve typed.

No better or worse than the example really, but a little bit simpler and it works for me.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:51:19 +0000

If you take out the TextEdit aspect you can have it work as a service for any text you select. Super handy.

By: kate

kate — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:05:54 +0000

this is fantastic! I also used this to check word count in Notational Velocity– works like a charm.

thanks for posting.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:24:53 +0000

Thanks a million!

By: Brooks

Brooks — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 19:00:50 +0000

Thanks a lot for this. It was exactly what I needed! It was driving me crazy copying & pasting text out of Notational Velocity just to find out the word count.

By: Phil Morse

Phil Morse — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:43:53 +0000

Brilliant, thanks! worked first time. I write all my articles in TextEdit (probably because I’m a geek) and this is something I was missing.