Navigation:  Tables > Sorting text

Not only can you sort the contents of a table, as described in the previous section, but also ordinary paragraphs in the text. To do so, use the ribbon command Home | Sort text/table.

Note: This command is applicable to both paragraphs of text and tables. If you want to sort tables, see the previous section Sorting tables.

Proceed as follows for paragraphs of text:

The paragraphs are now sorted accordingly.

The dialog box of the sort command has some additional options that you don't usually need. These options include:

Sort by:

Normally, all you need to specify here is the sort order: Ascending (A..Z) or Descending (Z..A).

The specification of a column as the basis for the sort is only useful if the selected paragraphs are organized like a table – that is, when they contain tabs or another separator. (See also the option Separator.)

Then sort by

You can specify more than one sort criterion if necessary.

If, for example, the first column contains last names, and the second column contains first names, you can select the first column for Sort by and the second column for Then sort by. The paragraphs will be sorted first by last name. Paragraphs containing the same last name will also be sorted by first name.

Separator

You only have to set the option Separator when sorting paragraphs that are organized like a table.

If the paragraphs contain, for example, names, street addresses, city names, you can tell Write which separator separates the individual components of the address:

▪Spaces

▪Tabs

▪User-defined (Here, you can enter the separator yourself.)

An example:

You want to sort the following three paragraphs:

Peter Miller[Tab]5 University Ave.[Tab]Pleasantville, NY 12345

Thomas Chris Howe[Tab]24 Park Drive[Tab]Cambridge, NJ 21220

Claudia Fisher[Tab]1024 13th Street[Tab]Forest Park, IL 98765

In this case, you should set Tabs as separators because the individual components of the address (name, street, city) are separated by tabs.

Advantage: You can now sort by Column 1, Column 2 or Column 3 in the dialog box of the sort command. Column 1 stands for the names, Column 2 for the streets, Column 3 for the cities.

If you selected Spaces as the separator, however, Write would consider each word as a "column", which would naturally be unhelpful because, for example, the name can sometimes consist of two or three words.

First paragraph contains headings

If the first of the selected paragraphs contains headings, you should enable this option so that Write does not include the first paragraph when sorting.

Example: The selected paragraphs contain addresses. The first paragraph includes headings such as "Name", "Street", "City", etc. In this case, you should enable this option to ensure that this paragraph will not be included when sorting, but will remain the first paragraph.

Case-sensitive

If you enable this option, sorting distinguishes between uppercase and lowercase letters. For example, all words that begin with a lowercase letter end up in front of the words that begin with a capital letter:

Disabled: Apples, bananas, Cherries. Enabled: bananas, Apples, Cherries.