In conjugated polymers the optical excitation energy transfer is usually described as Forster-type hopping between so-called spectroscopic units. In the simplest approach using the point-dipole approximation the transfer rate is calculated based on the interaction between the transition dipoles of two spectroscopic units. In the present work we compare this approach with three others: The line-dipole approximation, the Coulomb integral between the transition densities, and a quantum-chemical calculation of the interacting dimer as entity. The latter two approaches are based on the semiempirical method ZINDO. The line-dipole approximation is an attractive compromise between computational effort and precision for calculations of the excitonic coupling in extended conjugated polymers. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.