Shortening text

What this does

Task menu ▸ Shorten

Select a text and say by what percentage it should get shorter. The model rewrites it accordingly. The content is meant to stay, only more tightly put.

The percentage question

The add-in shows you how many words your selection has and does the arithmetic for you: "Enter the percentage by which your text should be shortened (it has N words; 20% will cut approx. M words)".

The default is 20 %. Anything from 1 to 99 is allowed; anything else is rejected. You can type the percent sign or leave it out.

The percentage says how much is taken away, not how much remains: enter 30 % and around 70 % is left.

How much to cut

• Up to 20 % – pure tightening. The structure of the text stays recognisable.
• 20 to 40 % – subordinate clauses and examples drop out. Usually still complete in substance.
• Over 50 % – this is selection, not tightening any more. Expect content to be lost, and check carefully which.

If you want a text at a particular length rather than reduced by a proportion, Summarize is the better tool: there you give a word count.

What to check afterwards

Shortening removes qualifiers first – "as a rule", "unless otherwise agreed", "up to". Words like that are linguistically dispensable and substantively decisive. Read the shortened text with that in mind before you use it.

When nothing happens

• No text selected – the feature needs a selection.
• Percentage outside 1 to 99 – the add-in asks again.
• Input cancelled – nothing is changed.