Text Stats

Analyze text files for word count, character count, line count, sentence count, reading time, speaking time, readability scores (Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level), and vocabulary statistics. Use when counting words, analyzing readability, estimating reading time, or getting text metrics for documents, essays, blog posts, or any text content.

Analyze text for word count, readability, reading time, and more. Reads files or stdin.

Quick Start

# Analyze a file
python3 scripts/text_stats.py README.md

# Multiple files
python3 scripts/text_stats.py file1.txt file2.txt

# From stdin
echo "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." | python3 scripts/text_stats.py

# JSON output
python3 scripts/text_stats.py essay.md -f json

# Compact (key metrics only)
python3 scripts/text_stats.py chapter.txt --compact

Output Metrics

Metric	Description
Words	Total word count
Characters	Total characters (with and without spaces)
Lines	Total and non-blank line count
Sentences / Paragraphs	Count of each
Syllables	Estimated syllable count
Unique Words	Vocabulary diversity
Avg Word/Sentence Length	Average sizes
Reading Time	Estimated at 238 WPM
Speaking Time	Estimated at 150 WPM
Flesch Reading Ease	0-100 scale (higher = easier)
Flesch-Kincaid Grade	US grade level equivalent
Difficulty	Easy / Standard / Fairly Difficult / Difficult / Very Difficult

Options

Flag	Description
-f, --format	plain or json output
--compact	Show only words, sentences, reading time, grade, difficulty

Notes

• No external dependencies (Python 3 stdlib only)
• Handles UTF-8 text with graceful fallback for encoding errors
• Syllable counting is heuristic-based (English-optimized)