You set the target, from 20% to 90% of the original. The facts set the floor: if a shorter version would lose one, it stops at the shortest version that keeps them all.

Does it shorten every sentence?

No. Sentences that are already tight stay; only words that do no work are cut.

No. A summary chooses what to leave out. The sentence shortener keeps every specific and cuts only how it is said.

Sentence shortener

Shorter sentences, same information

Paste a sentence or a whole draft and set how much to keep. The sentence shortener cuts wordy phrases, repetition and padding, merges what belongs together, and checks that every number, date and condition is still there.

Shorten it

6 free pages a month. No card.

A long document is condensed into a shorter note.

Made for

Subject lines, headlines and summaries that must fit
Emails and messages people read on a phone
Essays and applications with a word limit

Before and after

Example: 44 → 20 words · every fact kept

Original

Due to the fact that the server migration is scheduled to take place on Saturday 8 June between the hours of 22:00 and 02:00, it is anticipated that the customer portal will be unavailable for the duration of that period of time.

Result

The customer portal will be down on Saturday 8 June from 22:00 to 02:00 while we migrate servers.

Kept: Saturday 8 June
Kept: 22:00 to 02:00
Kept: customer portal

How Shorten works

Step 01
Empty sentences go first
Sentences that repeat what the passage already says are cut without a rewrite.
Step 02
Each passage gets a target
Your length applies to every passage, so nothing is squeezed to make room for another.
Step 03
The rest is tightened
Repetition, padding and wordy phrasing go; sentences that share a subject merge.
Step 04
Facts are checked
If the target and the facts conflict, the facts win and the passage comes as close as they allow.

Options

Target length: Keep 20% to 90% of the original. Default 50%.
Write in: Keep the language, or translate while shortening.

From code, terminal or agent

# REST API
curl https://readable.md/api/v1/transform \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $READABLE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "tool": "shorten", "text": "…", "length": 0.4 }'

# Command line
readable shorten report.md --length 0.4 --out short.md

# MCP tool: shorten

API, MCP and CLI docs

Questions

How short can it go?: You set the target, from 20% to 90% of the original. The facts set the floor: if a shorter version would lose one, it stops at the shortest version that keeps them all.
Does it shorten every sentence?: No. Sentences that are already tight stay; only words that do no work are cut.
Is it a summarizer?: No. A summary chooses what to leave out. The sentence shortener keeps every specific and cuts only how it is said.