Q: HOW TO SORT TEXT ALPHABETICALLY - pages

I'm a skilled PC person but only 3 months on the Mac. I do find instances of Mac being more confusing and less fully-featured in the "Office" realm. The Operating system and ease of use is overall superb, but there are some gaps. So I skimmed through a bunch of the replies, needing also to alphabetize a list in pages, and it all looked complicated and confusing. Then I did what I often do - went to the web. In 2 seconds I had this website that alphabetizes a list of text for you - http://alphabetizer.flap.tv/   Copy text from pages. Paste into window. Push button. Badda-bing. copy text in window. paste into pages. 15 seconds. Let's hope I didn't catch anything. I guess .tv is probably not the Republic of Tuva.

Get the free WordService collection of Services from the OS X App Store. Many of us use it. As part of its download, it installs services that provide shortcuts within Pages, and other applications. Select text to alphabetize in Pages, click the Pages menu > Services > WordService:Sort Ascending. In a second, your selected text is sorted in-place. Another service is capitalize intial word of sentences. Also very handy.

Once these services are installed, they are still not active for use in Pages, etc. Click the gear icon in your Dock to access System Preferences. Select the Keyboard preference panel, and the following in order: Shortcuts > Services. Scroll down in the right Services window until you see the WordService:Sort Lines Ascending. Check it to enable. Quit System Preferences. This sorting service is now available to you in Pages, TextEdit, Mail, etc.

If you click the Launchpad (rocket icon) in the left side of your Dock, you will find the WordService application icon. Click that, and then click its Help button. This will launch a PDF in Preview that lists all of the services and a brief description of each.

Thanks very your detailed instructions. That sounds very useful. I will do it.

My Table tab doesn't have such a thing as Sort Ascending/Descending.

I do not find WordService:Sort Lines Ascending under Shortcuts or Services.

Didn't mean to press helpful: wanted to press unhelpful and thought the number would go up or down depending on how helpful it had been. I'd give this a zero for my MacPro.

Correct, Pages (and other apps) does (do) not have an internal machine to do that. Nevertheless, the solution is simple:

1. Download WordService

2. Install it

3. activate its rich functions.

From now on, you may use WS under Services.

Work carefully and you will find ALL the functions. And do not hasten to give zeros, first read a little bit about what an app can do and cannot do.

In Pages 6 (& I assume Pages 5), hover the cursor over the right-hand side of the letter header & click to see the menu.

In Pages 4 it is in the "action" menu of the table inspector.

In both cases you must have the rows in the column you want to sort selected.

I'd rather not pay for something I used to get for free on Word, since I write very basic texts without the need for lots of changes outside what Pages already offers me. I will alphabetize as I go, thank you very much. Too bad.

WordService is free & always has been. You can get it from the Mac App Store or directly from Devon Technologies under the Freeware section.

The "table inspector"?  Neither of these examples appear on my Mac.

You do NOT pay anything for Word Service, and it is indeed a wonderful utility, not only for sorting alphabetically.

The table inspector is in Pages 4, iWork '09. There is no table inspector in Pages 6 (I looked). The first is a screenshot of a simple table in Pages 6.

Your text must be in a table to sort unless you are using Devon Technologies WordService.

Thank you! I found it and it works. You are great, Peggy.