About the Word Sorter
Where a line sorter keeps each row intact, this tool throws the line structure away and works on words. A word here is a run of letters or digits that may contain an internal apostrophe or hyphen, so don't and state-of-the-art survive as single entries while surrounding punctuation is stripped. Emoji, brackets and stray commas never reach the output.
Three sort keys cover the common jobs. Alphabet order is what you want for a glossary or a spelling list. Length order groups short function words at one end and the long technical terms at the other, which is a quick way to see the vocabulary level of a piece of writing. Frequency order counts every occurrence first, then lists each distinct word once with its count, which makes it easy to spot the term a document leans on.
Case folding is on by default so Branch and branch are the same word. Turn it off when you are sorting identifiers or product names where capitals carry meaning. The output separator lets you finish with one word per line for a checklist, or a comma list ready to paste into a config value. If you only need the counts and not the sorted list, Word Frequency Counter prints a tally table, and Unique Words returns the distinct set on its own.
How to use
- Paste the text or the word list you want reordered.
- Pick a sort key: Alphabet, Word length or How often it appears.
- Tick One entry per word to collapse repeats.
- Choose the output shape and copy the result.
Common questions
- What counts as a word?
- Any run of letters or digits, including an apostrophe or hyphen in the middle. Punctuation on the outside is removed.
- Why does frequency mode always deduplicate?
- A frequency list shows each distinct word once with its total, so listing repeats again would just restate the same number.
- Are numbers sorted as words?
- Yes, but digit runs are compared numerically, so 9 comes before 40 rather than after it.
- Can I sort longest word first?
- Choose Word length and set the direction to Descending. Ties fall back to alphabetical order.