Text Stats

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)