: Does Microsoft Word give a correct Word Count? I am writing a novel on Microsoft Word 2016. Does it give a correct word count that I can tell to my publisher?

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Different versions of Word count words slightly differently. For files that are just text, this isn't generally a problem, it's things like text in graphics and footnotes that throw this off. There's more information in this related question on SuperUser: What is MS Word counting or ignoring when it counts words in an open vs. closed file?

It's worth noting that in publishing, wordcount is often estimated by counting pages in standard manuscript format, generally double-spaced 12-point Courier with 1" margins. Pages formatted like this are assumed to be about 250 words, so a 200-page manuscript would be about 50,000 words.

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