Sorting Paragraphs

Oftentimes it is useful to be able to sort paragraphs within a word processing document. For example, how many times have you typed a list of references and found that some were out of order alphabetically? Or after typing your list of references, you found that a few were missing and needed to be added. The Sort command in Word can help you! To sort within Word do the following:

Select the text to be sorted by selecting the entirety of each paragraph. For example, if you have a list of references that need to be sorted, select each reference completely.
Choose TABLE Sort … . The Sort Dialog Box will appear.
Note that you can do a three-level sort (“Sort by”, “Then by”, “Then by”); this is usually not necessary for the usual sorts done in word processing documents (but can be very helpful if you are sorting text within a table!).
In the first drop-down list in each of these sections, you select whether you are selecting whole Paragraphs or Fields. (If you were doing a mail merge, your text may contain one or more fields).
In the “Type” drop-down list, you tell Word whether you are sorting text, numbers, or dates. (For example if you wished to reorder a numbered list, you could change the numbers than sort these paragraphs.)
Then you select the appropriate radio button to sort in ascending or descending order.
Lastly, your list would not have a header row (“My list has” item at the bottom of the box) if you were sorting paragraphs representing a list of references. If you were sorting rows in a table, you could select the first row that has the column labels and use these labels as sort keys.)
Click <OK> to initiate the sort.

Sort Dialog Box - Word 2000

The dialog box in Word 2001 is essentially the same

Sorting Paragraphs

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