Word count is not one number

A client says “keep it under 800 words.” You paste the draft into three counters and get 792, 801, and 814. Nobody is lying. They disagree about what a word is.

The usual split

Most browser tools, including TextFixer’s Word Count, split on whitespace: a word is a run of non-space characters. “Don’t” is one word. “well-known” is one word. “800-word” is one word.

Microsoft Word also treats most hyphenated compounds as one word, but it can count some symbol-heavy tokens differently. Google Docs is usually close to a whitespace split, then quietly updates the number as the doc reflows. Neither publishes a full algorithm.

Characters with and without spaces

Social bios and meta descriptions are character limits, not word limits. Twitter/X, Meta title tags, and SMS each count spaces. Some academic limits count characters without spaces. Always check which one the form is using before you trim a sentence that was already fine.

A non-breaking space looks like a normal space and still counts as a character. It does not always count as a word separator. That is why a line that “looks like 160 characters” can fail a 160-character field.

What to do when a limit is contractual

If a university, a publisher, or an ad platform will reject the file, count in their tool, not yours. Use TextFixer to stay near the target while you write. Do the official count in Word, the CMS, or the ad manager before you submit.

For your own drafts, pick one counter and stick to it. Chasing three numbers wastes more time than the 10-word gap is worth.