We are trying to get a word count without counting words with non-breaking spaces as two words. For instance, we want S[nonbreaking space]21 to be counted as one word. Is there a way to do this?

You could do the standard word count, then use Find/Replace to replace all the non-breaking spaces with themselves. Word will tell you how many replacements were made. Or just use Find with the Navigation pane or the 'Reading Highlight' option to get a count. Deduct the figure returned by whichever of those methods you use from the standard word count.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]