Alphabetizer

About this tool

Sorting a list by hand is tedious enough at 10 items and completely impractical at 100. Alphabetizer sorts any line-based list A → Z, Z → A, or by length (shortest first, with ties sorted alphabetically), and the output updates as you type or change a setting. Case sensitivity defaults to Ignore case, so 'Zebra' and 'apple' sort by letter; Case-sensitive mode keeps a locale-aware order in which a lowercase word sorts just before its capitalized form rather than putting all capitals first. Sorting uses the browser's locale-aware collator with numeric ordering, so 'item2' comes before 'item10' and accented letters sort next to their base letters. Blank lines are dropped; every other line is kept exactly as typed, including duplicates. Alphabetizer works on any line-delimited content: word lists, city names, product SKUs, file names, bibliography entries — anything where a consistent order makes content easier to navigate, compare, or publish.

Why use it

• A–Z, Z–A, and Length Sorting: Three sort modes cover the most common ordering needs for any line-based list.

• Case-Insensitive Alphabetical Sort: Sort 'Zebra', 'apple', and 'Mango' by letter without uppercase entries jumping to the top.

• Natural Number Ordering: Numbers inside lines sort by value, so 'Chapter 2' comes before 'Chapter 10' without zero-padding.

• Length-Based Sorting: Sort shortest-to-longest for formatting, typography, or data inspection tasks; equal-length lines are sorted alphabetically.

• Preserves Line Content: Only the order changes — each line's text is never modified, though blank lines are dropped.

• Instant on Any List Size: Sorts thousands of lines in milliseconds using the browser's native sort algorithm.

How to use

1. Paste your unsorted list into the Lines box, one item per line.
2. Choose a Sort mode: A → Z, Z → A, or By length.
3. Choose Case sensitivity: Ignore case (the default) or Case-sensitive.
4. The sorted list appears instantly in the Output box.
5. Select the output and copy it to your clipboard.

When it helps

• When alphabetizing a bibliography or reference list before submission.
• When sorting a keyword list for an SEO campaign into alphabetical order for review.
• When organizing a product catalog, feature list, or menu into alphabetical order for readability.
• When comparing two lists side-by-side after sorting both alphabetically to spot differences.
• When sorting a list of CSS class names or HTML attributes into a consistent order for maintainability.
• When preparing a glossary or index where entries must appear in alphabetical sequence.

Examples

Tips

• Sort both lists alphabetically before using Text Diff to compare them — the diff output will be cleaner and easier to read.
• Use length sorting to find your longest and shortest entries quickly — useful for spotting outliers or formatting issues in a dataset.
• To remove duplicates as well, run the list through Line Deduplicator, which also offers A → Z and Z → A output orders.
• Switch to Case-sensitive when 'apple' and 'Apple' must always come out in the same order — the lowercase form comes first.
• Numbered items like 'Step 2' and 'Step 10' already sort in numeric order, so you can skip zero-padding.

Frequently Asked Questions

Glossary

Lexicographic sort

A sort that compares strings character by character using their Unicode code point values. Uppercase letters have lower code points than lowercase letters in ASCII.

Case-insensitive sort

A sort that compares strings after converting them to the same case, so 'Apple' and 'apple' are treated as equivalent.

Stable sort

A sort algorithm that preserves the original relative order of elements that compare as equal. Most modern browser sort implementations are stable.

Natural sort

A sort that handles numbers within strings numerically rather than lexicographically, so '10' sorts after '9' rather than before '2'.

Descending sort

Sorting in reverse order so Z comes before A, or larger values come before smaller values.

Locale-aware sort

A sort that uses language-specific rules for ordering characters, particularly for accented and non-ASCII letters.