How do you know the grade level you are writing at?

[Lace]

???

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Tools - Options - Spelling & Grammar, enable Check Grammar with Spelling
*and* Show Readability Statistics. Now, when you check grammar, various
readability stats, including grade level, will be displayed once the grammar
check is done.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Unfortunately, you have to endure a grammar check to get these. I wish there
were some way to just run the grammar checker over the document *without
checking grammar* and come up with the readability scores.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

Me too!!

And I wish the grammar checker would be less cumbersome to use.

If I have a list of the following form:

I like to eat:
- bagels;
- pizza; and
- yogurt..
I am informed that "yogurt" should be "Yogurt", i.e., thinks there is a new
sentence after the "and". Same issue with "or".

Makes running grammar checker even more cumbersome.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Well... there is. Choose Tools - Options - Spelling & Grammar. Set Writing
Style to Grammar Only (which will turn off most of the Style options), then
choose Settings. Here, set the three top options to Don't Check, and remove
the checks next to everything else. Presto! Instant non-grammar grammar
checking. (Note: you can record a macro to do this for you, assuming you
*ever* want the grammar checker to check your grammar... FWIW, I find it
utterly useless.)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This sounds good, but I'm not able to get it to work. I keep pushing the
button for Recheck Document, but nothing happens. Do you have to run the
spelling checker to make this work? That's even worse; I don't ever
explicitly run the spelling checker--just "Check spelling as you type."

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

No... I turned off all options except for the bottom two (Check grammar
with spelling, and Show readability statistics), and when I click the
Grammar button (there is a distinct tool that checks only grammar), the
statistics pop up immediately. Caveat: there are a couple of grammar rules
that are not in the list of things you can turn off. If your document
contains any "violations" of those rules, you'll need to click Ignore rule.

But, FWIW, I wrote a very crude macro that gives just the readability
statistics (posted it in this newsgroup back on August 4th). Here's what I
wrote:

You might use a macro. This is extremely crude, but demonstates one approach
you might use. The following macro's formatting is awful, but...

Sub Readability()
Words$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(1).Value
Chars$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(2).Value
Paras$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(3).Value
Sents$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(4).Value
SperP$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(5).Value
WperP$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(6).Value
CperW$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(7).Value
Passv$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(8).Value
Flesch$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(9).Value
FleKi$ = ActiveDocument.Content.ReadabilityStatistics(10).Value


MsgBox Words$ + " Words" + Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) + _
Paras$ + " Paragraphs" + Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) + _
Sents$ + " Sentences" + Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) + _
SperP$ + " Sentences per Paragraph" + Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) + _
WperP$ + " Words per Sentence" + Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) + _
CperW$ + " Characters per Word" + Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) + _
Passv$ + " Passive Sentences" + Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) + _
Flesch$ + " Flesch Reading Ease" + Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) + _
FleKi$ + " Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level"

End Sub

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Actually, that was posted in the Spelling & Grammar newsgroup.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

What is the "distinct tool that checks only grammar"? Obviously that's what
I'm missing. I see a couple of Grammar... commands in Customize. Which is
it?

 

[Howard Kaikow]

"distinct tool that checks only grammar"

Should that have been "stinky tool that checks only grammar"?

As me make never mistake grammar of, need me grammar checker never use.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

In Tools - Customize - Commands tab, set Categories to Tools, and look for
the tool that says just Grammar... It has horizontal lines and a big red
checkmark--in Word 2003, it's right above Set Language in the list.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Thanks, Herb. I may try this.

In Tools - Customize - Commands tab, set Categories to Tools, and look for
the tool that says just Grammar... It has horizontal lines and a big red
checkmark--in Word 2003, it's right above Set Language in the list.