Topic: Filter abstracts that fall below a minimum length (Read 58678 times)

We need to filter all abstracts with less than 250 words.

Is it possible to reject submissions with less than a certain number of words (or characters) automatically?

Is there any function to get the word count of each abstract?

A specific function that enables a minimum number of words (or characters) is not available. In practice, this rarely is a problem, as submissions that are too brief and without any substance will be rejected anyway.

You can add a remark to the abstract field about the minimum length using the function "Languages and Phrases" and the key S_PAPER_FORM_ABSTRACT_HINT. More Information can be found in the entry Hidden phrases in ConfTool Pro to add extra wording (expert users only).

There is also the option to export all submitted contributions if you go to:

Overview => Data Import and Export => Export Data

… and click on the radio button for "Export Contributions" and on the check box to "Include abstracts of submissions" (see screenshot) to download an Excel list.

Please add a column to count the words of each abstract to the right of the abstract column of your Excel list.

Then enter the following function in this new column:

=IF(LEN(TRIM(K2))=0,0,LEN(TRIM(K2))-LEN(TRIM(SUBSTITUTE(K2," ","")))+1)

D2 represents the cell address referring to the cell that contains the abstract with the words that will be counted. If the calculation works and a result is displayed, please copy the formula of this field to all other fields of the column. The formula uses TRIM, SUBSTITUTE, and LEN functions: TRIM removes extra spaces at start and end of the text, SUBSTITUTE is used to remove all spaces from the text, LEN calculates the length of the text with and without spaces.

If you have a German version of Excel please use the following formula:

=WENN(LÄNGE(GLÄTTEN(K2))=0;0;LÄNGE(GLÄTTEN(K2))-LÄNGE(GLÄTTEN(WECHSELN(K2;" ";"")))+1)