Text statistics report — 23 counts and 6 readability scores

How to use Text Statistics

1. Paste your passage into Your text. A sample paragraph is there to start with.
2. Read the counts at the top, from Words down to reading time and size.
3. Scroll to the Readability table for six scores, each with a short note on what it means.
4. Edit the text and watch every number update.

What it does and when to use it

This is a full report for one passage. Use it to check that an article reads at a plain level, compare two drafts of a letter, or find the longest sentence before an editor does.

Figures that are easy to miss:

• Lexical diversity is unique words ÷ total words. A low value in a long text means a lot of repetition.
• Longest sentence (words) points to the sentence most likely to lose a reader.
• Size (UTF-8 bytes) is how much space the text takes in a database field.

If you only need words and characters against a limit, the Character Counter is quicker. To see which words drive the repetition, open the Word Frequency Analyzer. To compare two drafts line by line, use Text Diff.

How it works

Words are runs of letters or digits, with inner apostrophes and hyphens allowed. A sentence ends at . ! ? or … followed by a space or the end of the text. Paragraphs are separated by a blank line. The six scores use the published formulas, where W is words, S is sentences and Y is syllables:

• Flesch Reading Ease = 206.835 − 1.015 × (W ÷ S) − 84.6 × (Y ÷ W)
• Flesch–Kincaid grade = 0.39 × (W ÷ S) + 11.8 × (Y ÷ W) − 15.59
• Gunning fog = 0.4 × (W ÷ S + 100 × complex words ÷ W)
• SMOG = 1.043 × √(complex words × 30 ÷ S) + 3.1291
• Coleman–Liau and ARI use letters and characters per word instead of syllables.

Everything is calculated in your browser.

Worked examples

Very short words. “The cat sat on the mat.” has 6 words and 6 syllables. With one-syllable words only, the result is Flesch Reading Ease | 116.1, which is off the top of the usual scale. The Flesch–Kincaid grade is −1.4.

Release notes. “We ship on Monday. Tests pass. Notes are in the wiki, and the release checklist is complete.” gives 3 sentences, an average of 5.7 words per sentence and Longest sentence (words): 11. Reading Ease is 91.6, labelled Very easy.

Characters versus bytes. “Café 2026 ✓” on one line and “Second line” on the next gives 23 characters, 4 digits, 2 lines and Size (UTF-8 bytes): 26. The é and the ✓ take extra bytes.

Limits and tips

• Readability formulas were built for English prose. Lists, code and other languages give odd scores.
• Very short samples swing wildly. Five long words such as “Organisational accountability necessitates comprehensive documentation.” score −221.2 on Reading Ease. Test at least a few paragraphs.
• SMOG was designed for 30 or more sentences; below that, read it loosely.