Alphabetical, Natural and Numeric Sorting
The right order depends on what your lines mean.
Start with the whole item
Alphabetizer compares each complete line. Paste one name, label or number per line. Choose Alphabetical for words and names, Natural order for labels with number runs, and Numbers only for signed integers or decimals. By length answers a different question: which lines contain fewer or more Unicode code points?
Alphabetical versus natural order
Consider the labels item10, item2 and item1. Alphabetical comparison keeps numeric text as part of the label; Natural order enables the browser's number-aware comparison.
| Alphabetical A–Z | Natural ascending |
|---|---|
| item1 | item1 |
| item10 | item2 |
| item2 | item10 |
Natural order is useful for numbered sections, filenames or other labels. It does not interpret signed decimal values, dates or software versions as structured numbers. For example, a date label is still text; this app does not parse its calendar meaning.
For signed decimals, choose Numbers only
Input lines 10, 2, -3 and .5 sort as:
-3 .5 2 10
Numbers only requires a complete signed ASCII integer or decimal on each nonblank line. It rejects 10kg, 1,000 and 1e3; it will not guess which portion you meant. Remove units or formatting yourself, then review your source before sorting.
Values are compared exactly using digit strings. 9007199254740992 sorts before 9007199254740993. Floating-point rounding does not merge them. Equal values with different spellings—2.0, 02, +2—keep their original relative order.
Case, accents and stable ties
Ignore case is on by default. With input alpha, Alpha, beta, descending case-insensitive order is beta, alpha, Alpha. The two equal alpha keys stay in their original order. Their text is not rewritten.
Ignore case does not mean Ignore accents. Text methods use English Intl.Collator with accent sensitivity when case is ignored, or variant sensitivity otherwise. Collation can regard different Unicode representations as equivalent. Browser/locale data controls the detailed ordering of punctuation and accented forms, so it is not a universal language-independent alphabet.
Blank lines and edge spaces
Blank records—empty lines or lines containing only ASCII spaces/tabs—stay at the end, including for Z–A. They are retained rather than deleted. Ignore edge spaces affects only comparison keys. Turning it on can make apple and apple equal while keeping their original spacing and relative order.
An empty last record needs a final newline when written as text. Alphabetizer adds that terminator if necessary and names the change in the result and report. The manual's record examples explain how a final terminator differs from an extra empty line.
Length has a precise definition
By length counts Unicode code points in each comparison key. pen, page, notebook sort from shortest to longest in that order. A 😀 is one code point, while a letter and a combining accent are two. Joined emoji can contain multiple code points. This is not a measurement of screen width or user-perceived characters.
Keep a reviewable result
Check the original and sorted panes before copying. The Moved count says how many records changed position, not how many unique values or minimum edits exist. Download TXT for the list alone. Markdown and JSON reports keep the selected rule and counts; JSON also records original indices. Reports contain your sorted text, so share them only with the intended recipient.
If you need duplicate removal first, open Text Cleaner. If you need to inspect ordering changes afterward, open Text Compare. Transfer text explicitly using copy or local downloads.
Method references
The text methods use ECMA-402 Intl.Collator. Stable ordering and explicit original-index ties retain equivalent records. Worked outputs above are examples for the documented app rules; they are not a claim that every browser version orders every accented string identically.