Readabilities 3.0
i.t.i.p./aextra
Readabilities is a plug-in for InCopyCS3/CS4 and InDesignCS3/CS4 on both platforms MAC and WIN.
It analyzes text in InCopy stories, articles as well as in entire InDesign text threads and documents, using acknowledged industry-standard methods and thus determines objective and reliable scores for the readability of this text. Based on this measure, Readabilities can tell you for which grade level your text is suitable. Or, in other words: How educated has someone to be in order to understand your text? For you as an editor, this is an invaluable information, because it answers the central question: "Will my intended reader group understand what I'm just writing?"
Readabilities is available in two versions: a single place version, named Readabilities, and a special K4 version, named Readabilities (K4).
Multiple Readability Indices
Readabilities has incorporated 10 different methods of analyzing test, called "Readability Indices", or you could also say "readability scores". Ten different indices because you have different text for different purposes, and your intended reader groups vary from publication to publication.
Each Readability index has been developed for a particular type of text and its target group. So please keep in mind that not each method of assessing text is suitable of each kind of text.
Fully Customizable
Add your own word lists as "dictionaries" that work pretty similar to the InCopy/InDesign dictionaires, but have a few more options and capabilities. For example, you can add word combinations like "The Vice President" or "The Niagara Falls" into a Readabilities dictionary, and this combination will only be considered in exactly this manner.
Define how often "difficult" words shall be counted as "difficult" when calculating the New Dale-Chall index, and define which method for counting syllables shall be used when you calculate the Flesch indices.
Multi-Language Support
Not only text in English, but also text in Spanish can now be analyzed by the Readabilities. The Huerta Reading Ease Index tells you, on a scale from 0 to 100, the level of complexity or difficulty of this particular text.
Completely Transparent Calculation
Readabilities shows you exactly what it does. For example: Blue highlighting means "difficult word from the New Dale-Chall list"; red highlighting means "difficult word from a custom word list" and so on. Each color has its distinct meaning, and of course you can adjust each color to your favorite one.
If a color is softened, then this word is a repeated one.
With this, you have complete control over what Readabilities does.
Try It Out By Yourself
In order to get a personal impression, please just request your evaluation copy today: Request the demo version.
Special Offer - How To Order
Please navigate to the Readabilities page in our webstore in order to get your license(s) of the Readbilities plug-in. As a special initial offer, you'll get Readabilities at 79 Euro per license, and starting from 5 licenses, volume discounts apply.
If you work within a K4 environment, please contact us at readabilities@itip-gmbh.eu for detailed information and an individual offer. Thank you!
Certified For K4
Readabilities (K4) has been approved for use within the editorial system K4 by their developers, vjoon GmbH in Hamburg, Germany.
Product Demos
Would you like an evaluation copy? Send us a demo request!
i.t.i.p. Tip – InDesign
A New Non-Breaking Space Character
You might have noticed that Adobe introduced a second "non-breaking space" character with InCopy/InDesignCS3. The new one behaves in principle like the "old" one, but has no fixed width. This means, it will be stretched or shrunk during the composition, if you use a "justify" paragraph alignment.
The bad news is that they decided to assign the familiar keyboard shortcut "Cmd-Alt-X"/"Ctrl-Alt-X" to the new one! So be aware that your automatically typed "Cmd-Alt-X"/"Ctrl-Alt-X" characters won't have the usual fixed width.
Of course you can change the keyboard shortcuts by using the usual technique: "Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts".
Rudi Warttmann, Adobe Certified Instructor