Alphabetizer

Common questions

How do I alphabetise a list?

Paste it into the Your list box, one item per line, and the sorted list appears in the Sorted pane as you type. Nothing needs to be pressed and nothing needs to be uploaded. Set Order to A to Z or Z to A, set Language to the language the list is written in, and choose what to do about spacing and repeats with the Lines control: As pasted keeps every line exactly as it is, Trim drops the space at each end of a line, Dedupe keeps the first copy of a repeated line, and Both does the two together. Copy writes the whole sorted list to your clipboard. Swap back puts the sorted list into the Your list box, so you can sort the result again under different settings, and turns into Undo swap so the list you pasted is never lost.

Why does item10 come before item2 on other sorters?

Because they compare the text one character at a time, and the character 1 comes before the character 2, so item10 wins before the 0 is ever read. That is correct for text and wrong for anything numbered. With Numbers set to Natural, this page compares a run of digits as the number it spells, so item2 sorts before item10 and file 9 sorts before file 100. Set Numbers to Plain text to get the character by character answer back when you want it, for instance when your lines are part numbers or version strings you want grouped by their leading digits. One consequence worth knowing: under natural order item02 and item2 are the same number, so the collator calls them equal, and equal lines keep the order you pasted them in rather than being reordered or merged.

How are accented and non-English letters ordered, and why does the language matter?

They are ordered by your browser's collator for the language in the Language control, which is why that control is on the first screen and not hidden in a settings panel. It changes the answer. In English, Ångström is filed with the A words: on this page it sorts before apple, because once Å and a count as the same letter the second letters decide, and n comes before p. In Swedish, Å is its own letter at the very end of the alphabet, so the same list puts Ångström last, after Zürich. Turkish sorts dotless ı before i, so ısparta comes before istanbul there and last of the three in English. None of these is a mistake: they are different alphabets, and the only way to get the right one is to say which language the list is in. If your browser has no sorting rules for a language you pick, the page says so and leaves your list alone instead of quietly sorting it as English.

What happens to duplicates and blank lines?

Blank lines, and lines holding nothing but spaces or tabs, are always counted and dropped: the Your list pane says how many blanks it found and the sorted list does not include them. A single line break at the very end of the text is treated as the end of the last line rather than as an extra blank one. Duplicates are only removed when the Lines control is set to Dedupe or Both, and then the first copy is kept and the sorted pane says how many lines were removed, so the count never changes silently. The match is exact text, so Apple and apple are two different lines and both survive, and with Trim on the trimming happens first, which means two lines that differ only in the spaces around them collapse into one.

Is my list uploaded anywhere?

No. The sorting runs in your browser, there is no server in this and nothing you paste is sent or logged anywhere. Your list and your settings are remembered in this browser alone so they are still here when you come back, and the Start over button above the tool forgets them. If storage is blocked, in a private window for instance, the tool still sorts and simply does not remember.

How long a list can I paste in?

No limit is imposed. Everything happens in your browser with no account and no upload, so the practical ceiling is your device's memory rather than a plan: a list of twenty thousand lines is sorted whole, with nothing truncated and no line dropped. The panes wrap and scroll rather than stretching the page, and Copy writes out the entire sorted list, not the part you can see.

Can I sort Z to A, and what happens to lines that tie?

Set Order to Z to A. It reverses the comparison rather than reversing the finished list, which matters for ties: lines the collator calls equal, such as item02 and item2 under natural order, or café written with a combining accent and café written with the precomposed letter, keep the order you pasted them in in both directions. Nothing is reordered that you did not ask to be reordered.

Can I alphabetize a bibliography or list of citations?

Yes, if each complete citation is on one line and starts with the author or title you want to sort by. Paste the entries and use A to Z. The sorter compares the whole line; it does not identify surnames hidden later in a citation or apply APA, MLA or Chicago citation rules. Keep continuation lines together before sorting.

How do I alphabetize names by last name?

Prepare each entry with the surname first, for example Smith, John and Adams, Maya, then paste one name per line. The sorter compares the whole line and does not infer which words are a surname. First-name-first entries sort from the first name. Decide how to write compound surnames, prefixes and suffixes before sorting; no surname or filing-rule convention is applied automatically.

Can I alphabetize numbers and letters together?

Yes. Natural compares digit runs numerically, so item2 comes before item10. Plain text compares digits as text, so item10 comes before item2. This is language-aware line sorting, not a decimal-number parser: signs, decimal punctuation, titles and other text remain part of each line.

Can I sort a list copied from Word, Google Docs or a spreadsheet?

Copy a single list or column as plain text, put each complete item on one line here, then copy the sorted result back yourself. Formatting is not preserved. For multi-column CSV rows, use CSV Viewer to choose a sort column and keep fields together. This page does not change a document, spreadsheet, bookmarks or phone-app layout directly.

Does this sort letters inside a word or apply special title rules?

No. One line is one item: apple stays apple, and The Hobbit is compared from its first character. Letters can be sorted if each is on its own line. Titles, contractions, hyphens and apostrophes are compared by the selected browser collator; articles are not removed and Mc is not expanded into Mac.