Reader Time Bundle (Symfony)

A Symfony bundle that provides a Twig filter to estimate the time required to read online content (text or rich HTML).

It supports:

• word counting (unicode letters)
• optional rich-content overhead (images + tables)
• per-language reading speed presets (WPM) for several languages

Requirements

• PHP >= 8.1
• Symfony FrameworkBundle ^6.0 || ^7.0
• TwigBundle ^6.0 || ^7.0

Installation

Install with Composer:

composer require philippecharrat/reader-time-bundle

Symfony Flex should auto-enable the bundle (depending on your project setup). If not, enable it manually:

// config/bundles.php
return [
// ...
PhilippeCharrat\ReaderTimeBundle\ReaderTimeBundle::class => ['all' => true],
];

Configuration

Create (or edit) the following file:

# config/packages/reader_time.yaml
reader_time:
words_per_minute: 200
minimum_minutes: 1

Options

• words_per_minute (int, default: 200, min: 1) Base reading speed used when no langcode preset is provided (or if it is unknown).
• minimum_minutes (int, default: 1, min: 0) Minimum value returned when content is not empty (use 0 if you want to allow returning 0 for very short content).

Usage (Twig)

A Twig filter is provided:

Filter name: reader_time_minutes
Signature: reader_time_minutes(content, onlyText = false, langcode = null)

Examples

Estimate from rich HTML (text + images + tables):

{{ article.content|reader_time_minutes }}

Estimate from plain text only (ignore images/tables):

{{ article.content|reader_time_minutes(true) }}

Use a language preset (affects WPM):

{{ article.content|reader_time_minutes(false, 'fr') }}

Available language codes : ar, zh, nl, en, fi, fr, de, he, it, ko, es, sv

How it works (high-level)

Text is extracted with strip_tags() and normalized whitespace.
Words are counted using a unicode letters regex (\p{L}+).
If onlyText=false, extra time is added for:
    images (<img ...>) with a reduced weight when alt=""
    tables (<table ...>)

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome.