Alphabetical Order
Feed in a jumbled list — comma-separated, space-separated, one per line, or any custom delimiter — and get a neatly alphabetized result with duplicates removed and punctuation stripped if you want.
Name Lists
Guest & employee rosters
Keywords
SEO tags & categories
Data Cleanup
CSV & spreadsheet cols
References
Bibliographies & indexes
Input: 0 items Output: 0 items
Sorting Options Explained
a b c d
Alphabetical (A-Z)
Locale-aware, accents handled naturally
A B a b
ASCII Sorting
Raw code-point order, caps before lower
d c b a
Reverse (Z-A)
Descending order, applies to either mode
Apple ≠ apple
Case Sensitive
Distinguishes upper from lower when comparing
How It Works
1
Paste Your List
Drop in a comma-separated list, a column of names, or any text with a recognizable delimiter. Tell the tool how items are separated.
2
Tweak the Options
Pick alphabetical or ASCII mode, toggle case sensitivity, flip to reverse, and enable any cleanup filters you need.
3
Copy the Sorted Output
Choose an output separator that fits your destination — comma for CSV, new line for a document, space for inline — and hit Copy.
Best Practices
✅ Do
- Match the input separator to how your data is actually formatted
- Turn on "Remove duplicates" when cleaning up pasted tag lists
- Enable "Remove HTML" before sorting content copied from a web page
- Experiment with different output separators — new line is easiest to scan
- Use Alphabetical mode when your list contains accented names
- Check the item count badges to confirm the tool split your data correctly
❌ Don't
- Pick the wrong input separator — the output will look like a single unsorted blob
- Forget that ASCII mode pushes all capitals above all lowercase letters
- Enable "Remove punctuation" if your items legitimately contain periods or hyphens
- Assume case-insensitive sorting preserves the exact original casing of duplicates
- Mix delimiter styles in the same input without switching to Custom
- Use a custom separator without testing a small sample first
Tips by Use Case
Name Lists
- Set input to New Line if you have one name per row
- Enable "Remove duplicates" to catch repeated entries
- Use Alphabetical mode for international names with accents
- Output as comma-separated for mail-merge imports
Keywords & Tags
- Input by comma to handle tag lists from CMS exports
- Deduplicate before exporting to avoid redundant SEO tags
- Output by new line for easy review in a text editor
- Strip punctuation to normalize stray trailing periods
Data Cleanup
- Remove HTML when sorting content scraped from web pages
- Use semicolon input for data exported from European-locale CSVs
- Combine dedup + sort for a clean unique-value list
- Switch output to comma for direct paste into spreadsheets
References
- Paste bibliography entries one per line and sort A-Z
- Enable case sensitivity if your citation style requires it
- Use Reverse for newest-first chronological-alpha ordering
- Check item count to verify no entries were lost in splitting
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Alphabetical and ASCII sorting?
Alphabetical sorting uses your browser's locale rules, so accented characters like "e with acute" sort next to "e" and case differences are smoothed out. ASCII sorting compares raw character codes, which means all uppercase letters (A-Z, codes 65-90) come before every lowercase letter (a-z, codes 97-122).
How do I sort a comma-separated list?
Set the Input Separator to "Comma" so the tool splits your text on commas. Then choose whatever Output Separator you prefer — Comma to keep the same format, New Line for a vertical list, or Space to flatten everything out.
Can I sort and remove duplicates at the same time?
Yes. Check "Remove duplicates" and the tool deduplicates your items before sorting. The output will contain only unique entries in your chosen order.
What does "Remove punctuation" actually strip?
It removes every character that is not a letter, digit, whitespace, comma, or semicolon. Periods, exclamation marks, quotes, parentheses, and similar marks are deleted. This is handy for cleaning up copy-pasted content before alphabetizing.
How does the Custom Separator work?
When you select "Custom" for input or output, a text field appears. Type any character or string — a tab character, a pipe, a multi-character delimiter — and the tool will use it to split or join your items. Special regex characters are escaped automatically.
Why does ASCII mode put uppercase before lowercase?
In the ASCII table, capital letters occupy code points 65-90 while lowercase letters start at 97. A raw code-point comparison therefore places "Z" (90) before "a" (97). Alphabetical mode avoids this by using locale-aware comparison.
Can I sort numbers into proper numeric order?
The tool treats everything as text, so "9" sorts after "10" in both modes. To get numeric order, pad single-digit numbers with leading zeros (01, 02 ... 10) or use a spreadsheet with numeric-sort capability.
Does "Remove HTML" also strip HTML entities like &?
It removes HTML tags (anything between angle brackets) but leaves named and numeric entities as plain text. If you need entities decoded, run the result through the Text Encoder tool's HTML decode mode afterward.
Related Tools
Ready to Alphabetize?
Paste your messy list, pick separators and filters, and watch the output snap into perfect order. No sign-up, no limits — just fast, private sorting in your browser.
