docx app.xml word count attribute

[Greg]

I searched the forum in case this question had been raised before but did not
get any hits so I'll ask it and apologise if it is obvious.

The app.xml file within a docx is suppose to contain properties associated
with the global document. I am specifically after the word count (Words) and
line count (Lines).

These attributes appear to have a value but the value does not appear to
correlate to the document.

Even in a simple word 2007/2010 document containing 4 well known words
(EN-US), the word count does not appear to be correct, showing either 1 or
sometimes 2, if there is a period at the end of the 4 words.

I thought it might be occurences of unique words but this does not correlate
either.

Can anyone else explian this?

Thanks

Greg

[Peter Jamieson]

I can't give you a definitive answer, but
a. You certainly can't rely on the count in the <Words> element (as
you have discovered)
b. the word count in the <Words> element is not necessarily the same
as the "running count" that Word maintains while you work. Despite the
fact that Word obviously uses resource to maintain that count, it
doesn't seem to save it when you save the document.
c. if you go into the Statistics pane of the Document Properties
dialog, Word does, I believe, update this count, and I believe, but am
not completely certain, that the count that you see in there is the
count that Word will save. In some versions of Word you may have to do
more to force it to update its statistics.
d. It is possible that some versions of Word will eventually update
the statistics even if you do not visit the statistics pane. (I don't know).

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk