NanoCount is just a little program that watches the front TextEdit document and shows you the total words (or total characters). It also lets you set a goal and shows a little progress bar. It was writen especially for National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org) but obviously isn't just for novels. Hope a few people find it useful.
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Having read the reviews and put the whole folder in my apps it works fine for me. No pasting into it, it just sits as a little panel in the corner of my screen and tells me instantly (well, within 2 seconds) the wordcount of anything I open in TextEdit, I don't even have to click on it. Perfect. Lord knows why TextEdit doesn't do wordcounts, but as an editor needing to tally many files quickly, this fills the gap admirably. If you want something that counts the words you use to "improve" your style, you need something else, but beware: I know a writer who was shocked by how often he used "said" and changed them all to muttered, murmered, sighed, demanded, etc. The result was dire - said being almost a non-word, slipping into readers' minds unnoticed, while all these other words stood up and barked for attention. A brutally honest human reader (or just reading your text aloud to yourself) will improve style far more than a crude count.
Crashes on launch
Hiram
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This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Icon jumps in Dock, once, twice, app crashes. This is on a PowerBook G4, 867 MHz, 640 MB RAM, 10.4.2 (8C46).
Now I dont need MS Word at all
miwine_dotmac
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This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Word count is the one glaring omission in TextEdit; even though you can count defined text if you have Word Service installed; this eliminates the extra keystrokes. One suggestion: because screen real estate is at a premium, make the window adjustable to a small size for those of us who dont want to set goals, alter the number of seconds, have a progress bar, etc. -- better to have a tiny window and put the extras in the app preferences. And yes, it is a little clumsy to have to quit the app before quitting TextEdit...but for the price, it's hard to complain. Thanks to the developer for coming up with this.