doscrepancy in Pages character count

I am filling out an application for Cafe--call for entry for artists. The request an artist statement with a limit of 100 characters, which is very little, but with this problem, even very little is too much.

I am using Pages, which can give a word or character count. My artist statement is counted by Pages as 964 characters. However, when I try to transfer the statement, I get a red warning saying the count is over 1200. I tried several times in Safari and Chrome, both if which are accepted by CAFE, to no avail. ON top of that, if I drag the icon for the statement into the approriate box, it just shows the statement on anoter page, but it is not in the proper box. If I then do a copy and paste into the box, no matter how many times I have tried, it says 1201 characters, while Pages says 964. What is causing this and how di I solve it? IN this case I am not going from a Mac to a windows operating system. like other people in this forum have done to get their problems. thanks