Readability Score

Good texts get read without you noticing. Bad texts have to be read twice and still are not understood. The difference can be measured, and that is exactly what the readability score does: it analyzes sentence length, word length and syllable count and translates them into established readability formulas, so you no longer have to guess whether your text lands.

The best-known value is Flesch Reading Ease, adapted for German in the Amstad variant. It delivers a number between 0 and 100: the higher, the easier to read. The score computes it live while you type or paste your text, so you immediately see which direction a cut or rewording pushes it.

Because a single formula never shows the whole picture, more are added. The Wiener Sachtextformel is developed specifically for German and estimates the school year needed for effortless understanding. The Lix index measures readability more language-independently via the share of long words and sentence length. Together the values give a more robust picture than any formula on its own.

So the numbers do not stay abstract, there are reference benchmarks. Your value is placed next to well-known references - from easy-to-read tabloid press through a news magazine of medium complexity to an academic paper with long sentences and jargon. So you know not only that your text is hard but how hard relative to texts you know.

The practical core is the jargon detector. It knows the typical bureaucratic phrases and marks them in your text with a simpler suggestion. Wordy officialese becomes plain verbs, a heavy formulation becomes a light one. This is the fastest way to declutter a bloated text.

The score is no compulsion to primary-school language. A specialist text for specialists may be complex, a citizen information sheet should not be. The tool shows you the current state and the levers, but the decision on how simple your text should be stays with you. It makes readability visible instead of patronizing it.

Everything runs in your browser; your text never leaves your device. No signup, no transmission, no data collection. Whether you defuse a citizen information sheet, sharpen an application or simply want to know why nobody finishes your newsletter - the readability score gives you the number and the concrete levers.