When Character Counts - ClydeSight Productions' Count My Text

ClydeSight Productions has released "Count My Text!", an award winning software utility that helps anyone who is submitting data to the Internet where an accurate character and word count is required.

The program was developed to solve the problem of word processor character and word count reports that do not match those calculated by submission sources on the Internet. This often results in rejected submissions and confusion. It was developed from a discovery of the different way the Internet and word processors view text and documents.

"Word processors are great," says program developer, Tim Thompson, "and are highly sophisticated, but that's the source of the problem. They calculate their word and character counts according to linguistic rules. On the Internet, most input boxes use simple scripts that lack this sophistication. A word processor will "interpret" the count, an input box on the Internet will count everything. This results in an inaccurate word and character count reported by a word processor for text submission on the Internet."

Count My Text was developed to supplement word-processed documents. A user can type text directly into its "Text Input Box" or paste text from any source and run a count. Count My Text reports counts on six levels, including: "characters+spaces+line feeds". This report is especially useful for press release submissions where line feeds are included in the character count.

The program has a "Reveal Codes" box that shows users every character and its numerical position within the text. It displays invisible codes (spaces, tabs, line feeds, etc.) The user can manually change these if desired. But, this isn't necessary because of another program feature - Optimization.

When the user clicks the Optimize button in Count My Text, it scans the text and strips out redundant codes (i.e. the two spaces after punctuation), converts tabs to a single space and strips out all leading and trailing codes, thus lowering the character count. Additionally, it leaves internal redundant line feeds alone, thus preserving paragraphs. The user selects the optimized text and pastes it into the submission box on the Internet and the job is done.

Says Thompson, "We ran several tests against two popular word processors and Count My Text's optimization feature always reduced the count. While it is possible to check for redundant spaces and codes in a word processor manually, it can involve a few find and replace functions. Count My Text does it at the click of a button."

An added feature of the program is its "Color Theme" interface. It allows users to change the color of the program.

Count My Text launches instantly, uses very little computer memory, and writes nothing to the hard drive. It opens in a small window that can be expanded if desired or used as is, making it easy to switch back and forth with a browser window.

How well does the program work?

The body of this press release was created on a major word processor. It was typed using the "two spaces after a period" convention and there were some accidental spaces placed before line feeds.
The word processor reported:
3,092 characters,
3,685 character+spaces,
589 words and
no report of characters+spaces+line feeds.

It was then run through Count My Text and Optimized.
Count My Text reported (after Optimization):
3,092 characters,
3,656 characters+spaces,
589 words and
3,694 characters+spaces+line feeds.

Count My Text works on Mac and Windows and is available on line at the ClydeSight Productions Web site: http://www.clydesight.com/cmt/

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ClydeSight Productions are producers of inspiring and entertaining music, multimedia, e-books and Web sites.