Length of Selected Text in External Window

I need to be able to get the length of the highlighted (selected) text in an external Rich Control. Any ideas on how to do this?

Thanks,
Jordan

I don't know if this will work, Im just trying to mine ideas for you. Could you use send keys to copy whatever is selected in the other window into the clipboard?
Because then you could just do a simple Len function on what is in the clipbaord. Like this...

len(clipboard.gettext)

You would probably have to do something with API to have the proper window selected when the sendkeys fires in order to get the text string into the clipboard. Good luck.