Word Count

[dcwaslus]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

Can we get a word count tool for our courses?

Well, I don't know about a word count minimum requirement.  I was just thinking put something in like the corner of the text box or in the toolbar where it shows how many words have been written.  Yeah, I've had assignments where I had to have a 300 word minimum, and would have to copy and paste it into Word to figure out if I had enough.  I think this is an easy script to make, but I don't want to assume anything since I have very little programming experience or ability.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-14438-canvas-production-release-notes-2018-04-21 .

[gsalas]

I second this, it would be nice to be able to add a word count minimum warning for a post in a discussion board. I would like to add that a requirement of a post be 150 words or more. Currently, what I would need to do is after reading the post copy and paste the student's contribution to a word document to see a word count. It would be nice to have the post meet certain criteria in order to be posted.

[dcwaslus]

Well, I don't know about a word count minimum requirement.  I was just thinking put something in like the corner of the text box or in the toolbar where it shows how many words have been written.  Yeah, I've had assignments where I had to have a 300 word minimum, and would have to copy and paste it into Word to figure out if I had enough.  I think this is an easy script to make, but I don't want to assume anything since I have very little programming experience or ability.

[scottdennis]

Devon,

Do you mean you want a count of how many words are in use across the entire course or do you mean a way to count the words in a specific page?

Thanks,

Scott

[gsalas]

Something where when a student posts or responds to a post the subsequent textbox that appears would contain a word count.

Gary

[scottdennis]

I agree that that would be helpful,  @gsalas ​.

dcwaslus​ would you please edit your idea submission or comment here to let us know more specifically what you mean?

Thanks,

SD

[bawam]

yes can we have this feature added.

[jeffrey_gold]

Gary,

I was going to write this up myself months ago. I resisted. Every time I point out a problem or deficiency to Instructure, I've been told that it's a feature, or that I have to go into the Canvas forum and suggest it (instead of tech support simply forwarding it to their development team). Quite the opposite to Zoom tech support which is super-responsive—as if they are looking for user feedback, seek a great user experience, and even make the process of pointing out a problem or suggesting a feature a great experience. Every time you log out of Zoom you have a chance to leave feedback.

Word count is useful for instructors who have to worry about other (important) things (spelling, grammar, citations, etc.), so this would help enormously from having to: select, copy, launch MS Word/Apple Pages/Open Office, paste, select Edit > Writing Tools > Statistics (Pages).

Honestly, it would be nice if it was a CNTRL-feature menu selection already built into each browser.

Jeffrey

[jthoms]

I seem to remember seeing text editor word counts on the old Canvas Studio before the Community launched. Hope to see this back on the roadmap.

[canvas_admin]

If you're on a Mac running OS X, you can create a WordCount service following the steps found here:  Make a Word & Character Counting Service for All Apps in Mac OS X

I've set it up myself and when I select text and right click, I have "WordCount" as an option which will tell me the # of characters, words, and paragraphs. It works within Speedgrader as well so I simply select the essay rather than having to copy/paste into Word.

While I agree it would be nice to have this feature in Canvas, I have been able to get around it using this method.

[scottdennis]

OK, good news;  While I can't share a specific timeline, it looks promising that we will be able to add a word count to the RCE where a user will see a running count as they are typing in the editor.  Hopefully this will happen in the next few release cycles - again, no promises, but we are working on it.