Easily Reorganise A Word Doc By Sorting Paragraphs by Number

Easily Reorganise A Word Doc By Sorting Paragraphs by Number

When you’re writing a long research paper or article, chances are, you’ll need to rearrange some paragraphs during the editing process. There’s a simple way to do this in Microsoft Word: number your paragraphs, then sort them by number.

Screenshot: How-To Geek.

Editing my college research papers was always a pain, because I’d rearrange my paragraphs by copying and pasting, but then I’d inevitably forget where they went or lose my place in the document. Before I knew it, an entire section of my paper would be disorganized. Numbering those paragraphs is easy enough, and, as How-To Geek explains, you can the “sort by number” function in Word, and your document will be automatically rearranged:

Determine which paragraphs you want to reorder. Then, type the number “1” as the first character (then type a space) of the paragraph you want to be first in the revised order. Type the appropriate numbers as the first characters (with a space after each number) of all the paragraphs you want to reorder, similar to making a numbered list.
 
NOTE: When you add the numbers to the beginning of your paragraphs, Word may convert the paragraphs into a numbered list. If it converts a paragraph to a numbered list when you add a number to the beginning, press “Ctrl + Z” to undo the conversion. Your number will be left as you typed it. Also, if there are more than nine paragraphs you want to sort, make sure you add a leading “0” to your numbers (01, 02, 03, etc.).

From there, just select all the text, then navigate to Paragraph > Sort Text > Sort by and select “number.” Your paragraphs are automatically rearranged in the order you assigned.

If you’re a Google Docs user, there’s no sort feature, but the “Doc Tools” add-on will give you the option. Check out the full post for more detail.

[Via How-To Geek]


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