Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 22, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016
When you do a grammar check on your document, the very last step performed by Word is to display a set of readability statistics that you can use to analyze the presentation of your content. There may be times when you want to only display the readability statistics, without going through the complete grammar check first. Unfortunately, Word does not provide a way to do this. You can, however, create a macro that will display the readability statistics quite nicely. The heart of such a macro would be the ReadabilityStatistics collection.
To get an idea how such a macro could be written, consider the following single-line macro:
Sub CheckTest() MsgBox ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(9).Value End Sub
This macro displays a number that represents the Flesch Reading Ease value, ninth member of the ReadabilityStatistics collection. There are 10 individual elements in the collection, as follows:
Index | Meaning | |
---|---|---|
1 | Words | |
2 | Characters | |
3 | Paragraphs | |
4 | Sentences | |
5 | Sentences per Paragraph | |
6 | Words per Sentence | |
7 | Characters per Word | |
8 | Passive Sentences | |
9 | Flesch Reading Ease | |
10 | Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level |
To display all ten statistics (as would be done in a complete grammar check of your document), all you need to do is have your macro step through the various members of the collection and display their values. The following macro does just that:
Sub Readability() Dim DocStats As String Dim MBTitle As String Dim J As Integer MBTitle = "Readability Statistics" DocStats = "" With ActiveDocument.Content For J = 1 to 10 DocStats = DocStats & .ReadabilityStatistics(J) DocStats = DocStats & ": " DocStats = DocStats & .ReadabilityStatistics(J).Value DocStats = DocStats & vbCrLf Next J End With MsgBox DocStats, vbOKOnly, MBTitle End Sub
When you run the macro, understand that it takes a bit of time to run. In fact, depending on the speed of your system, the length of your document, and its complexity, it can take quite a bit of time to run. Be patient; once the ten statistics are completed, they are displayed on the screen.
Note:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10666) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Only Showing Readability Statistics.
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2022-06-03 05:22:26
Jim McCallum
Hi Andy,
Wow. Just brilliant. Works a treat. Thank you so much.
Will let my author friends know there's now a solution to getting readability stats by sentence and paragraph in Word 365.
And give you full credit for it.
You also ought to publicise this solution yourself.
With best regards,
Jim
2022-06-02 09:26:07
Andrew
Jim, try this macro. It is the same as Allen's except with the change I suggested and an error-check to make sure that some text is selected.
Andy.
=================
Sub Readability_Selected()
Dim DocStats As String
Dim MBTitle As String
Dim J As Integer
MBTitle = "Readability Statistics"
DocStats = ""
if Selection.Type = wdSelectionIP then
MsgBox "No text is selected.", vbOKOnly, MBTitle
Exit Sub
endif
With Selection.Range
For J = 1 to 10
DocStats = DocStats & .ReadabilityStatistics(J)
DocStats = DocStats & ": "
DocStats = DocStats & .ReadabilityStatistics(J).Value
DocStats = DocStats & vbCrLf
Next J
End With
MsgBox DocStats, vbOKOnly, MBTitle
End Sub
2022-06-01 05:51:09
Jim McCallum
Hi Andy,Thanks for the message and instructions.With my document open, and a sentence selected, I opened the Macros window from the View tab, named the macro Selection.Range as you suggested, and clicked the Create button. It then opened a separate Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window with - Sub Range ().Selection.Range Macro. End SubGo back to my document with the selected sentence, click Macros on the View tab, click View Macros, and the name and highlighted Macro is now listed as Range. The field Macros in: box has 'All active templates and documents'.I then click the Run button highlighted, and that window disappears, but the Editor does not appear with the readability stats for the sentence.On the document page, click Word Count in the Proofing section and it gives the number of words in the sentence. Click the Editor adjacent to it, and it gives the stats for the whole document only. So the Macro doesn't seem to work - or maybe I'm not doing it right. I've never used Macros before.Aside from this, I also just found that if I right-click on my selected sentence, I get an option to 'Review Selection in Editor'. This apparently is supposed to give me the readability stats for my selection, which is what I want. However clicking on this option, I get a message saying 'We've finished checking your selection. Want to check the rest of the document?' Options, Yes or No. I click No but no Editor comes up with stats for the selection. So, that's not working either. Maybe there's another setting somewhere which is blocking this feature. If so, I'd love to know what it is.Thanks and regards,Jim
2022-05-31 11:13:24
Andrew
Jim, the .ReadabilityStatistics property applies to any Document object or Range object. In this Case, Allen used the Range Object associated with the entire main story of the document (= ActiveDocument.Content). For your purpose, try replacing ActiveDocument.Content in Allen's macro with Selection.Range.
Andy.
2022-05-29 12:29:43
Jim McCallum
Hi Allen,
Found your very interesting website when searching for the answer to my very specific problem with readability stats in Word 365. Hope you can help me find that answer.
I'm a professional writer and just upgraded from Office 2010 to Office 365. To my horror, in Word 365, I now can’t get my readability stats by sentence and paragraph, only by full document. This was one of the greatest tools MS provided. I use it every hour of every day to give my readers the best experience. Why would they upgrade a flagship product and take out a key function? It’s illogical. I now have to use shabby old Word 2010 rather than shiny new Word 365 to get this facility. it’s ridiculous. Feel duped. Is there any way I can get readability stats by sentence and paragraph in Word 365?
I've tried every avenue I can find within MS, but can't get any sensible response. In your opinion, is there an answer, or am I chasing a lost cause?
Regards,
Jim
2020-02-17 22:26:36
AB
Just letting you know that the ndex order has changed in Word 2016. Changes are:
8 = Flesch Reading Ease
9 = Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
10 = Passive Sentences
2018-07-22 21:25:37
Stella
Hi Allan, I have the same problem as Daniel, the passive sentence count always shows up as 0. If you could help with this, would be very grateful.
2018-02-25 19:26:14
Daniel
Hiya,
This macro doesn't work for (breaks?) the passive voice stat. Any suggestions?
2018-01-08 20:14:48
Susan Uttendorfsky, Adirondack Editing
Yes! Sometimes I need to see this in the middle of an edit and didn't know how to get access to it (other than running a spell check). Again, thank you! :)
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