...count instead, or raising your word rate. nm

• Does anyone count words instead.... - Wanda
  • I do - Sue
  • And if you average it out to 10 words a line, that's - 10 cpl. Might want to raise it by doing character
    • ...count instead, or raising your word rate. nm - Good luck! :) nm

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Do any of you have plans to raise rates with the new year coming up?  I know my offices have raised their rates three times this past year, but I have not.  With gas prices, heating prices, food, etc, going through the roof, I feel I don't have a choice. 

I would appreciate any feedback.

As an MTSO, don't think you are going to increase your accounts *yearly* (the word you used).....good luck if you're taking that route!!

I have my surgeons for a decade due to they pay very well and I have NEVER raised their rates because then they COULD choose to go elsewhere for less.....just my take.....

I also worked for nat'l services for years and they rarely raised their rates to their clients, as they, too, never wanted to lose any accts.

Good luck to you, whichever way you go!!

to use the word count in Word and then divide it by something to get a standard line count for that report. Has anyone done this before? I forgot the way to calculate when working in Word.

Microsoft word line count - what is the name of it and where can I buy it.  Also,on a dictaphone, how can i tell how many minutes of dictation i have left. 

Hi. Does anyone know if number characters show up as word count in MS Word? I'm doing a lot of them in tables, etc. as well as a lot of symbols. Just curious.

Thanks,

Terry

under tools.  Take the number w/o spaces and divide by 65.  That will give you the line count.  Then take the number with spaces and divide by 65.  You will see that the difference is more like 20%.  So making .12 a line w/o is great!  Wish I could find a work that paid that.

I am an IC and will be starting with a new client this week.  Can someone tell me how to get an accurate line count in Word?  I know that have a word/line count in Tools, but I have found that it is not accurate (it usually gives you more lines than you actually typed).  I don't want to cheat anyone, so I am hoping someone can tell me how to get an accurate line count.  Thanks in advance for your help.         Trish

Depends if you are counting gross or cpl.  The gross does count the blank lines but it is an accurate line count.  You can even put on the numbers to show you that it is.  You can do this under file and page set up.  You can also do to sections only.  But you can also take characters with spaces and divide by 65 or whatever character line you are charging.   Other than that you can buy a program that works.  When I used a program I liked Sylcount as you could set it up to count twice for a capital letter,bold, underline, etc.  And you are using two characters to do that.   But it takes a while to get used to and time is money, so I told my docs I was sticking with gross lines, lower rate and easier and less time to count and so we all agreed.  They are happy, I am happy. 

and divide it by 65.  That will give you your line count.  So, if my report had 11,700 characters with spaces, that would equal 180 lines.  Multiple 180 lines x. 0.11 (your cost per line) and that would equal $19.80 for that particular report.

Good luck!

Chickadee

Hello. I just started transcribing for an interpreter who does work for various medical institutions and mainly for foreign pharmaceutical product descriptions. The work is very tedious and time consuming and pay is $15 per 1,000 words. The work involves a lot of  inserting of symbols, outlining, turning off and on bolding, italics, underlining, and doing a lot of indents and tabbing. He said my work was flawless but I feel like I'm making $2 an hour. Any ideas or thoughts on this rate of pay? Being new it's taking me quite a while to do all the extra formatting, etc., and it’s not just straight transcribing. He also mentioned that he does translation and dictation for medical journals and just bought a Dragon program.  I’m assuming he’s doing the easier work on his Dragon program but I’m not that familiar with it. Any additional HELP would be great!!

Under file, properties comes up the word count that shows the lines plus characters with and without spaces and I have no add-ons as I am the MTSO. 

Hi,

The solutions others gave are good, but if I just needed to get the number of lines with typing (and don't need an invoice or a report), I'd use a Word macro.

The other solutions offered have this drawback: If the body of your document contains tables, the count Word gives you is vastly inflated, for Word counts each cell in that table as a line. This is not what the eye sees, and becomes problematic when you try to justify such to your client.

Below is a macro for counting what we at Emmaus call Lines Strict. (i.e. Lines with typing on them, vs Lines Extended that includes the blank lines).

To use it, copy from Public Sub through End Sub, and paste it into your macros along with your other macros. Easiest way of doing this is (after you have copied the appropriate lines):

1. Click Tools | Macros, and select an existing macro.

2. Click the Edit button.

3. Once the Visual Basic Editor opens, press Ctrl+End to move to the bottom.

4. Paste the clipboard contents.

5. Click File | Compile Normal. (If you've pasted things that don't belong, it won't compile.)

6. Click File | Close and Return to MS Word.

Merry Christmas!
vJoe
http://www.mpword.com

OOPS! I looked at the HTML code after I pasted the code into the editor on this board, and it added things that when pasted into the Visual Basic Editor in Word will not compile. Here's the code if you want to retype it, but pasting won't work. If you send me an email, I'll attach the code into a .txt document, and you won't have any problems.  vjoet@attglobal.net

Public Sub GetLinesStrictCount()
    Dim CharsStrict As Long
    Dim Count As Long
    Dim ParaswBlanks As Long
    Dim ParasWOBlanks As Long
    Dim LineswBlanks As Long
    Dim BlankLines As Long
    Dim LinesWOBlanks As Long
    Dim NumOfTables As Long
    Dim NumOfRows As Long
    Dim TableRowCount As Long
    Dim x As Integer
   
    TableRowCount = 0
    NumOfTables = 0
    NumOfRows = 0
   
    ActiveDocument.ComputeStatistics (wdStatisticCharacters)
    ActiveDocument.ComputeStatistics (wdStatisticLines)
    CharsStrict = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyCharacters)
    ParasWOBlanks = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyParas)
    LineswBlanks = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyLines)

    NumOfTables = ActiveDocument.Content.Tables.Count
    If NumOfTables > 0 Then
        For x = 1 To NumOfTables
            With ActiveDocument.Content.Tables.Item(x)
                NumOfRows = NumOfRows + .Rows.Count
            End With
        Next
        TableRowCount = NumOfRows
    End If
   
    If CharsStrict > 0 Then
        ParaswBlanks = ActiveDocument.Range(wdMainTextStory).Paragraphs.Count
    Else
        ParaswBlanks = 1
    End If
       
    If LineswBlanks > 1 Then
        LineswBlanks = LineswBlanks + 1
    End If
   
    If ParaswBlanks = 1 And ParasWOBlanks = 1 Then
        BlankLines = 0
    Else
        BlankLines = ParaswBlanks - ParasWOBlanks
    End If
   
    LinesWOBlanks = LineswBlanks - BlankLines
    Count = LinesWOBlanks
   
    MsgBox "Lines Strict (with typing) = " & CStr(Count + TableRowCount)
End Sub

and have never paid for daycare while working.  I have been doing this for about 10 years and my children are ages 10, 7 and 5.  As I have added children and they have gotten older, it has become more distracting, but there are ways to do it without daycare.

When younger and I only had the 1, I worked in the mornings and afternoons when he was sleeping and finished up my day when my husband came home.  As our family grew and the younger children became older, I dropped the afternoon shifts and worked primarily early morning and nights when the kids were sleeping and/or my husband was home.  Now that they are in school, I am able to work daylight during the school year and evenings/nights in the summer when my husband is home.  If I had to pay daycare, no way would this be a profitable job. 

I would not recommend that you get into this field if you will need to pay daycare expenses.  You're much better off if you can work around your husband's schedule (if married) or if you have family close by that would be willing to help out a few hours a day with childcare.  Now that my kids are all in school, I really do enjoy the freedom this job allows me.  I rarely miss a school function or sporting event and the summers at home are great!

While not available in all areas, this is a wonderful program to help out families and communities.  I used it for years when I lived in Colorado and now that I have moved, I am in the process of finding this program in my state. 

The program consists of paying a certain amount for a given box of food (you can buy more than one) on a certain day or days.  Then, you put in volunteer hours in your community for each box you purchase.  You have a volunteer slip signed where you volunteer.  On D-Day, you go and pick up your boxes of food. 

The boxes consist of fresh fruits and vegetables and meat items.  Occasionally there is cheese too.  There might be pasta and/or rice.  There is often a prepared food item.  They offer seasonal boxes for holiday baking, meat lover's boxes in time for summer grilling and Thanksgiving boxes.  The retail value of what you get in a SHARE box is usually at least double the cost of the box, and that has been my experience.  The kids and I used to go and help on D-Day, passing out boxes, cleaning up for our volunteer activity.

http://www.sharecolorado.com/

is for Colorado and several other states, but should link you nationally too.