Sort Text Lines

Sort Text Lines takes an unordered block of text and returns the same lines in a chosen order. It supports three sorting modes, each with an ascending or descending direction, and runs entirely in the browser, so pasting a client list or a column of internal IDs does not send the data anywhere.

How to Use

1. Paste or type your text into the input area, one entry per line.
2. Pick a mode: alphabetical, numerical, or length.
3. Pick a direction: ascending or descending.
4. Adjust the case, whitespace, and empty-line options if the defaults do not fit.
5. Copy the sorted output from the result pane.

Line endings are normalised first, so a file saved with Windows CRLF endings and one saved with Unix LF endings behave identically.

The Three Sort Modes

Alphabetical compares lines with localeCompare, which is locale-aware and, by default, case-insensitive. This is not the same as sorting by raw character code: it means accented letters, punctuation, and case are ordered the way a reader of the active locale expects.

Numerical parses the leading number of each line with parseFloat and sorts by value. Lines with no leading number are assigned a sort value of infinity, so in ascending order they sit at the bottom and in descending order they float to the top.

Length sorts by character count of the trimmed line, which is handy for finding outliers in a list of keywords or captions.

Worked Examples

Alphabetical, ascending, case-insensitive:

banana
Apple
cherry

becomes

Apple
banana
cherry

Numerical, ascending:

100
7
42

becomes 7, 42, 100. Note that alphabetical mode would produce 100, 42, 7, because the character 1 sorts before 4 and 7.

Length, ascending:

fig
apple
kiwi

becomes fig (3), kiwi (4), apple (5).

Numerical with mixed lines:

3 cats
12 dogs
no number here

becomes 3 cats, 12 dogs, then no number here. The third line has no leading digit, so it is treated as infinite and stays at the end.

Options That Change the Result

Option	Default	Effect when changed
Direction	Ascending	Reverses the comparison, so Z-A, largest-to-smallest, or longest-first
Case sensitive	Off	Treats Apple and apple as distinct keys
Trim whitespace	On	When off, leading spaces count toward length and affect comparisons
Remove empty lines	On	When off, blank lines are kept and sorted as empty strings, landing first in ascending order

Because trimming is on by default, a line of kiwi is measured as 4 characters, not 7. Turning trimming off changes both the length ranking and any alphabetical comparison that involved indentation.

Common Mistakes

• Expecting Item 42 to sort as 42. It will not; the prefix hides the number. Either move the number to the front or strip the prefix.
• Forgetting that blank lines disappear. If you are trying to preserve spacing between groups, disable empty-line removal.
• Mixing numeric formats. 1,000, 1.5, and 1 000 do not parse the way you might expect, and entries that fail to parse silently sink to the bottom.
• Assuming code-point order. Alphabetical mode uses locale collation, so punctuation and case do not fall where a raw ASCII comparison would put them.
• Overlooking the reported line count. It reflects the post-removal count, which is a useful check that nothing was dropped unexpectedly.

Sorting Numbers in Real Data

Numerical mode is only as good as what parseFloat can read, and that function stops at the first character it cannot include in a number. The practical consequences are worth knowing before you trust a sort:

Line	parseFloat reads	Sorts as
3 cats	3	3
-12	-12	-12
2.5	2.5	2.5
1e3	1000	1000
1,000	1	1
$5.99	(fails)	infinity
v2	(fails)	infinity
2.10	2.1	2.1

The last row is the trap for software teams. Semantic version strings such as 2.10 and 2.9 both look numeric, but the parser reads the first float only, so 2.10 becomes 2.1 and sorts below 2.9. For version numbers, split the components and sort each field, or zero-pad them to 2.10 versus 2.09 so a plain sort happens to work.

Practical Tips

• If your list looks like Item 42, rearrange it to 42 Item before sorting, or use a find-and-replace to move the number to the front.
• Duplicate lines survive the sort and sit next to each other because the sort is stable. Remove duplicates first if you want a clean list.
• Case-insensitive alphabetical mode is the right default for names and words. Switch on case sensitivity only when the distinction genuinely matters, such as sorting a list of programming identifiers.
• Trimming is on by default, which is usually what you want, but turn it off if indentation is meaningful, such as when sorting code or nested outlines.
• Compare the reported line count with your input to catch lines silently dropped as empty or whitespace-only.

Real-World Scenarios

• Cleaning an exported CSV column of names or IDs before re-importing it.
• Sorting a keyword list by length to see which search terms are shortest and easiest to target.
• Ordering numbered log lines or test cases so the output is readable.
• Preparing a bibliography or glossary where entries must be alphabetical regardless of capitalisation.
• Ranking scores or dimensions by value when the numbers are at the start of each line.

Related Tools

• Remove Duplicates
• Line Counter
• Word Counter