[Tex/LaTex] Why is there such a huge discrepancy between the Overleaf and Microsoft Office Word word counter

Question

I've just finished my dissertation, which I chose to write using a template on Overleaf (the LaTeX template editor).

My word count on Overleaf was about 18,000. I thought I would C&P into Word and it came up as 21,500. Obviously a huge dilemma, since my word limit is 20,000.

Is there anything people know about Overleaf that could account for the difference in word count? I was thinking maybe the preface/abstract/appendix isn't included in the word count, but then I am sure this wouldn't fill the difference.

Answer 1

(I'm co-founder at Overleaf.) As alpenwasser indicates in a comment, Overleaf uses texcount to count the words. You can find out more here: https://www.overleaf.com/help/85.

At the time of writing, we run texcount with the options -quiet -merge -incbib -dir -sub=none -utf8 -sum.

A way of customising the texcount options on Overleaf is on our roadmap. In the meantime, if you'd like to try out other options, you can run texcount locally or use the handy web interface, if your text is easily copy-and-paste-able: http://app.uio.no/ifi/texcount/online.php