To count characters in Word for Windows, go to Review and click Word Count (on a Mac, Tools, Word Count): the box gives the characters with spaces and without spaces. Tick «Include textboxes, footnotes and endnotes» to add the notes too. If you select a passage first, it counts only that.
In a cassation appeal before the Third Chamber of the Tribunal Supremo (the Spanish Supreme Court), that is the figure required by the Agreement of 20 April 2016: the appeal and response briefs «shall have a maximum length of 50,000 “characters with spaces”», footnotes included.
How to count characters in Word for Windows
In Word for Windows, characters with and without spaces are under Review, Word Count. It is the version we used for the tests in this guide (Word for Microsoft 365 in Spanish, on 23 October 2026).
- Look at the status bar, at the bottom left: Word shows the number of words there as you type.
- To see the characters, go to the Review tab and click Word Count, or click the count in the status bar. In our Spanish-language Word, Ctrl + Shift + G is assigned to that same count.
- The Word Count box shows pages, words, Characters (no spaces), Characters (with spaces), paragraphs and lines.
- If the document has notes or text boxes, tick Include textboxes, footnotes and endnotes. Without that box, Word does not add them.
To keep the characters in view all the time, right-click the status bar and choose Character Count (with spaces). Microsoft's official list of shortcuts in Spanish has none for counting words and, for other dialog boxes, gives the ones from English Word; why, in the Word keyboard shortcuts that save the most time.
Counting only part of the text
To count part of the text, select it: according to Microsoft, the status bar then shows the count for the selection and for the whole document, including characters if you have added them. It is useful for measuring a ground of appeal or a legal argument without copying it to another document.
How to count characters in Word for Mac and Word for the web
On a Mac and on the web the count is the same, but the menus have different names.
Word for Mac
In Word for Mac, the count is in the Tools menu, Word Count, and it also opens with a click on the count in the status bar (one of Microsoft's help pages also places it on the Review tab). The Word Count box appears, with the characters. To pin them to the bar, hold Control while you click the status bar and choose Character Count (with spaces). The Mac help does not mention the footnotes box: if your brief has notes, check that it appears and is ticked.
Word for the web (Word online)
In Word for the web, go to Review and click Word Count: the characters appear in the Document Statistics box. If you don't see the count at the bottom, check that you are editing (Edit Document, Edit in Word for the web). Microsoft's help in Spanish gives this button one name on one page and another name on another, and for the web it does not mention the notes box: for a figure you are going to certify, it is safer to use desktop Word.
What Word counts and what it leaves out
Word always counts the body text; notes and text boxes, only with the box ticked. We checked it in Word for Microsoft 365 in Spanish (version 16.0.20430) on 23 October 2026, measuring the characters with spaces of a document as we added each element:
| Element | Without the box | With the box |
|---|---|---|
| Body text | Counted | Counted |
| Footnotes and endnotes | Only the note reference mark, as one character | Counted |
| Text boxes | Not counted | Counted |
| Header and footer (including the page number) | Not counted | Not counted |
| Comments | Not counted | Not counted |
| Text inside an image | Not counted | Not counted |
| Paragraph breaks | Not counted | Not counted |
Track Changes does not inflate the figure: with changes not yet accepted, Word counted the final text and left out what was struck through. How to close the changes and remove the markup before sending, in Track Changes in Word, step by step.
What the Agreement of 20 April 2016 says about the length of a cassation appeal
The Agreement of 20 April 2016 sets the length and format of cassation appeal briefs before the Third Chamber (the Supreme Court's administrative law chamber). It was adopted by the Sala de Gobierno (Governing Chamber) of the Tribunal Supremo and published in the BOE (the Spanish Official State Gazette) on 6 July 2016 (BOE-A-2016-6519), in accordance with article 87 bis of Ley 29/1998 (the Spanish Contentious-Administrative Jurisdiction Act). This is what it says, word for word (our translation from the Spanish):
| What it regulates | Text of the Agreement |
|---|---|
| Length (appeal brief and opposition brief) | «The appeal and response briefs shall have a maximum length of 50,000 “characters with spaces”, equivalent to 25 pages. The text shall appear on one side of the sheet only (front) and not on both (front and back).» |
| What it includes | «This maximum length includes the footnotes, outlines or charts that may be incorporated.» |
| What must be stated | «The Lawyer, or another person designated by them, must certify at the end of it the number of characters contained in the brief being filed.» |
| Font | «The font used for the text shall be “Times New Román”, in a size of 12 points in the text and 10 points in the footnotes or in the literal transcription of legal provisions or paragraphs of judgments that are incorporated.» |
| Line spacing | «The line spacing in the text shall be 1.5.» |
| Margins | «The horizontal and vertical margins (top, bottom, left and right margins of the page) shall be 2.5 cm.» |
| Numbering | «All pages shall be numbered in ascending order, starting with number 1. This number shall appear in the top right-hand corner of the page.» |
| Paper | «The electronic format of the page shall be A4, without lines or other elements that hinder its reading or computer processing.» |
| Preparation and opposition to admission (guidance criteria) | «The preparation and opposition briefs should have a maximum length of 35,000 “characters with spaces”, equivalent to 15 pages, written on one side only (front).» |
The BOE writes «Times New Román», with an accent; in Word the font is called Times New Roman.
What the BOE shows as of 23 October 2026: no amendment. Its consolidated text keeps the wording published on 6 July 2016, with no later references, and among the agreements of the Governing Chamber of the Supreme Court published in the BOE since 2016 there is no other one on the briefs of the Third Chamber. The BOE does not mark the status (in force or repealed) of these agreements, so we cannot say more than that.
The First Chamber and the Fourth Chamber have their own agreements, also with 50,000 «caracteres con espacio» (characters with spaces): the one of 8 September 2023, for civil cassation appeals (in Spanish), and the one of 24 March 2025, for employment cassation appeals (in Spanish).
How to check in Word that the brief complies with the Agreement
To check it you have to look at two things in Word: the count of characters with spaces and the page format.
The count: 50,000 characters with spaces
- Finish the whole brief, with the footnotes already in place.
- Go to Review, Word Count (or Ctrl + Shift + G in Spanish-language Word for Windows).
- Tick Include textboxes, footnotes and endnotes: the Agreement includes «the footnotes» in the length.
- Read Characters (with spaces), the line that corresponds to the Agreement's «caracteres con espacio».
- Write the figure at the end: the Agreement asks you to certify «at the end of it the number of characters contained in the brief being filed». If you change anything afterwards, count again.
Bear in mind two limits of Word: it does not see text inside an image (an outline pasted as an image adds nothing) or the text in the header and footer. The Agreement includes «outlines or charts» in the length, but it does not explain how to count them, nor does it expressly exclude any part of the brief.
If you file cassation appeals often, the closing sentence with the figure repeats in every brief: you can save it as AutoText and change only the number, as we explain in how to use Quick Parts in Word.
The format: font, line spacing, margins and numbering
In our Word for Microsoft 365 in Spanish, a blank document opens in A4, with 2.5 cm at the top and bottom and 3 cm at the sides, in 12-point Aptos and with multiple line spacing (Microsoft gives 1.15 as the default). To set it up as the Agreement requires, in Word for Windows:
- Paper. Under Layout, Size, check that A4 is selected.
- Margins. Under Layout, Margins, Custom Margins, enter 2.5 cm for top, bottom, left and right. Microsoft's help in Spanish calls that tab «Diseño», but in Word for Microsoft 365 in Spanish it is called «Disposición» (Layout); «Diseño» is a different tab.
- Font. On Home, open the Font box with the launcher in the corner of the Font group or with Ctrl + M in Spanish-language Word. Choose Times New Roman, 12, click Set As Default and tick This document only. Microsoft's help in Spanish gives Ctrl + D, which in Spanish-language Word aligns text to the right.
- Footnotes at 10 points. In our test, when we set Times New Roman 12 in the Normal style, the notes changed to Times New Roman 10 on their own: their style, Footnote Text, is based on Normal and already comes at 10 points.
- Literal quotations at 10 points. Select each transcribed provision or paragraph of a judgment and set 10 in Font Size, on Home.
- 1.5 line spacing. Select everything (Ctrl + E in Spanish-language Word) and press Ctrl + 5, or choose 1.5 under Home, Line and Paragraph Spacing. In our test, the footnotes did not change.
- Page number at the top right. Under Insert, Page Number, Top of Page, choose Plain Number 3, which places it on the right in the header. Word does not add it to the count.
In Word for the web, Microsoft warns that every new document goes back to 1.15 line spacing. If you file cassation appeals often, save the empty document already set up as a template.
50,000 characters: how many pages or words is that?
The Agreement gives its own equivalence: 50,000 characters with spaces are «25 pages», and 35,000, «15 pages». What it really takes up depends on the font, the size, the line spacing, the margins and how much continuous text there is: headings, blank lines and paragraphs that end halfway along a line leave gaps.
We measured it in Word with the Agreement's format (A4, 2.5 cm margins, Times New Roman 12, 1.5 line spacing) and real legal text: passages from the preambles of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil (the Spanish Civil Procedure Act) and of the Ley de la Jurisdicción Contencioso-Administrativa (the Contentious-Administrative Jurisdiction Act), cut at 50,000 and 35,000 characters with spaces.
| Characters with spaces | Words | Pages in our test | Agreement's equivalence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 | 7,807 to 7,861 | 17 to 19 | 25 pages |
| 35,000 | 5,337 to 5,473 | 12 to 13 | 15 pages |
The number of pages varies with the alignment and the space between paragraphs: 17 or 18 with justified text and no space between paragraphs, and 19 with the 8 points after each paragraph that the Normal style comes with. With no space between paragraphs, 34 lines and about 2,900 characters fitted on a page full of continuous text. To estimate it with your brief:
- Words: divide the characters with spaces by 6.4. In our samples we got 6.4 to 6.6 characters per word, counting the space: 50,000 characters are about 7,800 words.
- Pages: divide the characters by the number that fit on a page, about 2,900 with continuous text; every heading and every short paragraph lowers that figure.
It is an estimate. The Agreement's limit is written in characters and the equivalence in pages is the one the text itself gives; in our test, with continuous text, the 50,000 characters were reached with 17 to 19 pages.
And the 50,000-character brief, dictated
An appeal close to the limit is about 7,800 words, according to our measurement. Almost all of them come out of the lawyer's head (facts, grounds and reasoning), and that part can be dictated.
With ablalo you dictate the brief in Spanish straight into Word, or into any other program, with a keyboard shortcut: the text appears where the cursor is, already punctuated and without filler words, with more than 30,000 legal terms recognised out of the box. If you say «insertar artículo 1902 del Código Civil» (insert article 1902 of the Civil Code), it pastes the literal, current text of the article, taken from the BOE; remember that the Agreement asks for 10 points for the literal transcription of legal provisions and that Word adds it to the count like any other text. Your voice is transcribed on your own computer.
The final count, in Word, as you have seen above. And the method for getting a long brief to come out well organised when you dictate it, in how to dictate a legal brief.
In short
Word counts characters with and without spaces under Review, Word Count (on a Mac, Tools, Word Count), and it only adds footnotes and text boxes if you tick «Include textboxes, footnotes and endnotes»; it does not count the header, the footer or text in images. For a cassation appeal before the Third Chamber, the Agreement of 20 April 2016 sets 50,000 «caracteres con espacio» (characters with spaces), notes included, in Times New Roman 12, 1.5 line spacing and 2.5 cm margins, and asks for the figure to be certified at the end of the brief. In our test, 50,000 characters were about 7,800 words and 17 to 19 pages.
Sources: BOE, Agreement of 20 April 2016 of the Governing Chamber of the Supreme Court (Third Chamber) and its consolidated text; Agreement of 8 September 2023 (civil cassation) and Agreement of 24 March 2025 (employment cassation), all in Spanish. Microsoft, character count, word count, show word count, custom margins, default font, default line spacing, page numbers and keyboard shortcuts. Checked on 23 October 2026. Shortcuts, button names, what Word counts and measurements, checked that day in Word for Microsoft 365 in Spanish for Windows (version 16.0.20430).
Frequently asked questions
How do I count characters with spaces in Word?
On the Review tab, click Word Count: the box shows the line Characters (with spaces). You can also right-click the status bar and choose Character Count (with spaces) to see it at the bottom all the time. In Spanish-language Word for Windows, Ctrl + Shift + G opens that same count.
How do I count characters without spaces in Word?
They are in the same Word Count box, on the line Characters (no spaces), just above the one with spaces. To count only part of the text, select it and look at the status bar, which shows the count for the selection and for the whole document.
Does the Word count include footnotes?
Only if you tick the box Include textboxes, footnotes and endnotes in the Word Count box. In our test with Word for Microsoft 365, the header, the footer, comments and text inside images were not counted, even with the box ticked.
How do I count characters in Word online?
In Word for the web, go to Review and click Word Count: the characters appear in the Document Statistics box. Microsoft's help does not mention the footnotes box for the web, so for a figure you are going to certify it is safer to use desktop Word.
How many pages are 50,000 characters?
The Agreement of 20 April 2016 treats them as equivalent to 25 pages. In our test with its format (A4, 2.5 cm margins, Times New Roman 12 and 1.5 line spacing), 50,000 characters of continuous legal text took up 17 to 19 pages; with more headings and short paragraphs, they take up more.
How many words are 50,000 characters?
About 7,800 in legal text: in our samples we got between 7,807 and 7,861 words. To estimate it with your own text, divide the characters with spaces by 6.4.
What is the Agreement of 20 April 2016 of the Governing Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court?
It is the agreement that sets the maximum length and the format of cassation appeal briefs before the Third Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court: 50,000 characters with spaces for the appeal brief and the opposition brief, Times New Roman 12, 1.5 line spacing and 2.5 cm margins. It was published in the BOE on 6 July 2016 (BOE-A-2016-6519).