Word Count: Chars w/ spaces

I too have this problem. In Pages 5.0, character count now omits spaces, so it does not return the true character count and I can find no way to toggle between character count with or without spaces. I need to find a solution fast because I depend on this for a portion of my client writing work.

The Statistics Services module from WordServices is reported to still work with Pages v5. My previous post discusses how to get the free WordServices package. In that post, it was reported that most of the other services in this package are inoperable with Pages v5 -- but if it gives you accurate character counts -- then it is a useful tool.

Or, you can implement this AppleScript Service that I just wrote. You can click on the following image to enlarge it. It definitely (tested) counts characters and spaces.

Of course, that assumes there are no double spaces.