Long Description: Over Character Limit... But Not?

Not sure this is the right place to ask…

In a product’s Long Description there’s a 1900 character limit. I’ve realised it’s counting paragraph spaces (Enter) and symbols like “&” as 6 characters apiece, as well as counting all the characters that are in an embedded hyperlink.

Are there any ways to resolve this? I’m trimming and trimming and now down to about 1200 actual characters but still get a count on the page of 1980. Bit stumped, so any tips much appreciated!

Thanks