About the Sort Words Tool
Paste a sentence, a paragraph or a list and this tool puts the words in order. Choose A to Z, Z to A, shortest or longest first, or simply reverse the current order. You can sort each line on its own, so every line of a list keeps its place, or sort all the words together. Options let you treat capital letters as different, remove repeated words and strip punctuation around words. The number of words is shown. It works in your browser and your text is not uploaded.
Updated October 2026
How to use the Sort Words Tool
- 1Paste your text into the left box.
- 2Choose the order: A to Z, Z to A, by length or reversed.
- 3Tick Sort each line on its own if you have a list with one set of words per line.
- 4Choose whether capitals matter, whether to remove repeats and punctuation.
- 5Copy the sorted words.
Everyday uses
Alphabetical word lists help with glossaries, keyword research and spelling practice. Sorting by length helps in word games and in finding unusually long words. Reversing the order is a quick way to flip a list that was typed from the bottom up. Removing repeated words after sorting gives a clean vocabulary list from any text.
Since the words come out separated by line, the result is easy to paste into a spreadsheet column.
How sorting treats letters
By default capital and small letters are treated alike, so Banana sits between apple and cherry. With the case option, capital letters sort ahead of small ones, as in a computer's character table. Accented letters are compared in a way that puts them near their plain versions.
- Mixed case: Banana, apple
- Case-sensitive: Banana before apple
- Numbers sort as text, so 10 comes before 9
After sorting
Check the count under the result. If your text has hyphenated words or contractions, they stay whole because words are split on spaces. For sorting whole lines rather than words, use Sort Lines by Length or the line tools on this site.
Examples
The words pear apple Banana cherry apple fig sort A to Z as apple, apple, Banana, cherry, fig, pear. With repeated words removed, apple appears once. Sorted by length, the shortest word, fig, comes first, and words of the same length stay in the order you typed them.
Choosing Reverse flips the order of the words you pasted without sorting them, which is handy for checking a sentence backwards.
Privacy and limits
Words are sorted by code in your browser, so nothing is uploaded. Very long texts are fine on a computer; on an older phone, sort in smaller parts if the page feels slow. The word count under the result helps you check that nothing was lost. To sort whole lines instead, use Sort Lines by Length, and remove repeats with Remove Duplicate Lines. To tidy a list before sorting, use Remove Duplicate Lines, and Merge Text Lists joins two lists first.
Features
- A to Z, Z to A, by length or reversed
- Sort whole text or line by line
- Optional case-sensitive sorting
- Optional removal of repeated words
- Optional punctuation clean-up
- Private: nothing is uploaded
Frequently asked questions
How do I alphabetize words?
Paste the text, keep the A to Z order and read the result. Words are separated by spaces and sorted without regard to capital letters unless you tick the case option.
Can I sort each line separately?
Yes. Tick the per-line option and each line is sorted on its own, so your lines stay in place but the words inside each are put in order.
Does punctuation affect the order?
It can: a word with a comma after it is a different string from the same word without. Tick the punctuation option to strip it from the ends of words first.
How do I remove repeated words?
Tick the repeated-words option. Each word appears once. Without the case option, Apple and apple count as the same word.
Can I sort words by length?
Yes. Choose shortest first or longest first. Words with the same length keep their original order.
Is my text uploaded?
No. The text is sorted in your browser, so nothing is sent to a server.