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How are word boundaries determined for word counts?

Perry Stinson

Dear RWS Community,

Some of our users who translate English to German in Studio asked us how word counts for certain phrases are determined in Studio. By experimenting, I found that:

“PM-FC-NI-PP YTD” is counted as 2 words.

"MC-P2E-EP-CAP/RE/OCI-Period” is counted as 3 words.

“MC-E2P-BP-Divest Old” is counted as 2 words.

It seems to me that spaces and slashes are the word boundaries in these examples. Is that correct? 

Our users also asked whether a hyphen could be changed to be a word boundary, as they consider that to be more accurate in these example. I suppose there are pros and cons. There are probably other examples where hyphens don't make sense as a word boundary.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Kind regards,

Perry

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[edited by: Perry Stinson at 2:59 PM (GMT 1) on 22 Jun 2026]
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    Hello Perry,

    Thank you for your detailed question! Let me clarify how word boundaries are determined in Trados Studio and address your specific queries.

    ### Step 1: Understanding Word Boundaries in Trados Studio

    In Trados Studio, word boundaries are generally determined by spaces, punctuation marks, and certain special characters. Based on your examples:

    - **Spaces** and **slashes ("/")** are treated as word boundaries.

    - **Hyphens ("-")** are not treated as word boundaries by default. This is why phrases like "PM-FC-NI-PP YTD" are counted as 2 words (the space separates the two parts), while "MC-P2E-EP-CAP/RE/OCI-Period" is counted as 3 words (slashes act as boundaries).

    ### Step 2: Customizing Word Count Behavior

    Currently, Trados Studio does not provide a built-in option to treat hyphens as word boundaries. However, there are a few workarounds you can consider:

    1. **Pre-Processing the Text**: You could replace hyphens with spaces temporarily before importing the text into Trados Studio. This would force the software to treat each segment separated by a
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    Hello Perry,

    Thank you for your detailed question! Let me clarify how word boundaries are determined in Trados Studio and address your specific queries.

    ### Step 1: Understanding Word Boundaries in Trados Studio

    In Trados Studio, word boundaries are generally determined by spaces, punctuation marks, and certain special characters. Based on your examples:

    - **Spaces** and **slashes ("/")** are treated as word boundaries.

    - **Hyphens ("-")** are not treated as word boundaries by default. This is why phrases like "PM-FC-NI-PP YTD" are counted as 2 words (the space separates the two parts), while "MC-P2E-EP-CAP/RE/OCI-Period" is counted as 3 words (slashes act as boundaries).

    ### Step 2: Customizing Word Count Behavior

    Currently, Trados Studio does not provide a built-in option to treat hyphens as word boundaries. However, there are a few workarounds you can consider:

    1. **Pre-Processing the Text**: You could replace hyphens with spaces temporarily before importing the text into Trados Studio. This would force the software to treat each segment separated by a
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