A different form of accounting?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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Inspired by this thread I was browsing through the manual and found this mysterious passage:

“Target for this document Sets the numerical goal for the document, using words or character counts. If you select a different form of accounting than what is being displayed in the footer bar, then no x/y information will be shown in the footer bar, but the bar will still show your relative progress.” (20.1.2 Document Goals, p. 508–509)

Since I’m only able to select characters or words and can only enter numerical values… how would I select such a different accounting method; and relative progress compared to what? :thinking:

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Ask an economist. I’m sure they’ll be able to contrive a narrative in no time.

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And a counter-narrative, and both of them will be true.

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Possibly a confusing way of putting it, but if the footer bar is configured to count words, and you set a target in characters, Scrivener won’t be able to show the ratio of your current to target counts. It will be able to show the progress bar as normal, though.

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Oh, now I get it. Maybe you could add a hint that this refers to the “Live counts show:” setting in Preferences → Editing.

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Thanks! I’ve added a note to clean that description up a bit. This was doubtlessly one of those paragraphs added after months of 12 hour days with nothing but this project open, living from one hotel to the next, on bad coffee and packaged sweet rolls, while waiting for my work visa to clear.

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