README

A free academic writing tool by Plagiarism Checker X.

Plagx Preflight for PHP is a free, open-source draft checker for PHP and Laravel apps. Use it as an essay checker before students submit: it checks the word count and structure, matches in-text citations against the reference list, and gives punctuation and basic grammar suggestions plus readability stats.

No dependencies beyond ext-mbstring, works offline: text never leaves your server
PHP 8.1+, works in any framework (Laravel, Symfony, WordPress plugins)
APA and MLA citation checks
Results identical to the JavaScript version, offsets included

Try the live demo →

Developer downloads: Packagist · npm · Docker Hub · GitHub

Plagx Preflight is a free academic writing utility by Plagiarism Checker X. It checks length, structure, references, punctuation and basic grammar, and every result is a suggestion. Plagiarism checking and AI-generated text detection are available in Plagiarism Checker X, linked at the end of this page.

Install

composer require plagiarismcheckerx/plagx-preflight

Quick start

use Plagx\Preflight\Preflight;

$result = Preflight::checkDraft($text, [
    'minWords' => 1500,
    'maxWords' => 2000,
    'style' => 'apa',
    'requiredHeadings' => ['Introduction', 'Conclusion'],
]);

$result['stats'];
// ['words' => 1620, 'sentences' => 84, 'paragraphs' => 12, 'characters' => 9811,
//  'readingTimeMinutes' => 9, 'fleschReadingEase' => 48.2]

foreach ($result['issues'] as $issue) {
    echo "{$issue['line']}:{$issue['column']} {$issue['level']} {$issue['message']}\n";
}
// 5:14 warning Suggestion: "the the" looks like a repeated word.

API

Preflight::checkDraft(string $text, array $options = []) returns ['stats', 'errors', 'warnings', 'infos', 'issues']. Each issue has level, code, message, start, end, line, column, text and suggestion. Issues are sorted by position.

start, end and column count UTF-16 code units, like JavaScript, so results match the other Plagx Preflight libraries exactly. To highlight text in PHP, use text or line and column.

Option	Default
`minWords`, `maxWords`	none	Word limits (reference list excluded)
`style`	`'apa'`	`'apa'` or `'mla'`
`checks`	all except `'passive-voice'`	`length`, `references`, `punctuation`, `grammar`, `passive-voice`
`requiredHeadings`	`[]`	e.g. `['Introduction', 'Conclusion']`

Helpers: Preflight::countWords($text), Preflight::splitSentences($text), Preflight::findCitations($text, $style), Preflight::VERSION, Preflight::CHECKS.

Invalid options or text that is not valid UTF-8 throw InvalidArgumentException.

Checks

Group	Codes	Level
Length & structure	`word-count-low`, `word-count-high`, `long-sentence` (over 40 words), `long-paragraph` (over 250 words), `single-sentence-paragraph`, `missing-heading`	warning / info
References	`citation-no-reference`, `missing-reference-section`, `reference-not-cited`, `et-al-format`	error / warning
Punctuation	`unmatched-quote`, `unmatched-bracket`, `double-space`, `space-before-punctuation`, `missing-space-after-punctuation`, `repeated-punctuation`, `mixed-quote-styles`	warning / info
Grammar	`repeated-word`, `a-an`, `sentence-capital`, `lowercase-i`, `common-confusion`, `passive-voice` (off by default)	warning / info

Good to know

Every result is a suggestion. The grammar rules are deliberately conservative, so they miss some mistakes rather than flag correct text.
The reference list starts at a heading such as References, Bibliography or Works Cited. It is excluded from the word count and from the punctuation and grammar checks.

Development

composer install
composer test

tests/parity/expected.json and tests/fixtures/ come from the JavaScript reference (npm run parity in plagx-preflight). Every case must match exactly.

Plagx Preflight - Free Draft & Grammar Checker

An open-source writing utility for students, researchers and developers. Check length, structure, citations, punctuation and basic grammar before you submit.

Developed by Plagiarism Checker X.

Plagx Preflight gives writing suggestions; it does not detect plagiarism or AI-generated text. For full document checks, explore Plagiarism Checker X and its AI Content Detector.

plagiarismcheckerx / plagx-preflight

Package info

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