diff --git a/manuskript/functions/__init__.py b/manuskript/functions/__init__.py
index eb96253..fc65f9a 100644
--- a/manuskript/functions/__init__.py
+++ b/manuskript/functions/__init__.py
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ def safeTranslate(qApp, group, text):
         return text
 
 def wordCount(text):
-    return len(re.findall(r"\S+", text))
+    return len(re.findall(r"\S+", re.sub(r"(<!--).+?(-->)", "", text)))
 
 
 def charCount(text, use_spaces = True):