Sorting alphabetically

[alzheimer]

Help wanted please. I have been given lists of names etc and need to make these lists alphabetical. So far, I haven't managed to "sort" them with any of the usual TextPad or NotePad or OpenOffice. (I don't have "Word") I'm sure I am being my usual dense self but can somebody out there point me in the right direction please!

[etype]

do you have excel? it is very easy to list alphabetical

[alzheimer]

Hello etype. Sorry - no excel. I ditched Word for OpenOffice and the "sort" is grayed out.

[wideboy]

Try here with Calc:- (no Writer yet):-

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2005/11/calc_quickies.html

[wideboy]

Maybe this, using a database for the list (probably better anyway) and then doing a mail-merge?:-

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/01/what_im_learnin.html

[rojash]

Save them in a text file in a folder
Click Start/Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt
At the prompt type:

CD "\The full path to the folder"

hit <enter>

at the prompt type:

Sort<name of file> sorted.txt

Type:

exit and hit <enter>

Open the file "Sorted.txt"

This assumes that you have typed them in the form Surname Forenames

[solveig]

Hi,

I'm assuming that your text looks something like this: just one line, then carriage return, and so on.

John Majors
Billy Bob
Caren Rand

To sort them, select all the lines to sort, then choose Tools > Sort. I'm not sure why Sort would be grayed out. Maybe copy and paste all the data into a new document and see if it's still grayed out.

In the window that appears, you can just leave it with Key 1 and Column 1 marked. Then click OK.

That will sort the data by the first letter on the line; in this example the first name.

I'm going to blog more thoroughly on this later in the week at http://openoffice.blogs.com -- I'll cover sorting by first and last name and other stuff.

HTH,

Solveig

[alzheimer]

'Evening everybody...it took me a while to try out the various suggestions - for which many thanks indeed. I seem to have started something! You will all be relieved to know that I have cracked it...and it was your idea, solveig, to start a new document that did it. The "sort" was no longer grayed out and I was in business. The idea of sorting about 100 names and email addresses was daunting without help and I will be interested to read your blog on the subject . You learn something new every day - even as an OAP!! Thanks again all.