Profile says 255 max for sig, but not working

[SagaLore]

I'm trying to update my signature, and I keep getting that the maximum character length has been exceeded. A few weeks ago I ran into this and just assumed it was too long, but tonight I used Word to run a word count and I'm staying well under the limit. So is the 255 characters a typo, or does the forum assign different character amounts when I'm trying to use an emoticon? (like )

 

[Jason Clark]

Remember the count includes all HTML, emoticons, bolding, italicizing etc.... It is accurate.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

sagalore, spaces like the ones inside these quotes: " " also count as characters, just fyi

 

[sciencewhiz]

your confused smilie became this: <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif" border="0">