Text Sorter vs Excel Sort — When to Use Which

TL;DR

Use Tools.Town Text Sorter when you have a pasteable line list and need A→Z, numeric, natural, or shuffle in seconds — no file open. Use Excel when sorting by one column while keeping related columns aligned, or when you need formulas and pivots.

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At a glance

Need	Tools.Town	Excel
Single-column A→Z	Excellent	Good
Natural sort (v2 before v10)	Built-in	Custom / helper column
Numeric line sort	Built-in	Sort with values
Multi-column keep-together	No	Excellent
Dedupe lines	Companion tool	Remove Duplicates
Split into N chunks	List Splitter	Formulas / Power Query
Privacy (data stays local)	Client-side	Local file
Install / license	None	Desktop or Microsoft 365

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When Tools.Town wins

• Quick keyword or email list cleanup in the browser
• Natural sort without helper columns
• Shuffle or length sort for one-off jobs
• No spreadsheet installed on the machine

When Excel wins

• Sorting a table by City then Name
• Keeping email + name + score columns aligned
• Repeatable workbooks shared with a team

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Honest case for both

Most people need both. Paste into Text Sorter for throwaway lists; keep Excel for structured datasets. Pair with Remove Duplicates from List and List Splitter for the full List Ops path.

Next step

Try Alphabetize List or Sort List by Number on a sample paste — then decide if you still need a sheet.