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The specification of a column as the basis for the sort makes sense only when the
selected paragraphs are organized like a table – that is, when they contain elements
delimited by tabs or other separator characters (see the Separator option).
Then sort by:
If required, you can specify more than one sort criterion.
For example, if the selected paragraphs are in columnar form, and if the first
column contains last names and the second column contains first names, you can
select the first column for Sort by: and the second column for Then sort by. The
paragraphs will be sorted first by last name. In addition, paragraphs containing the
same last name will be sorted by first name.
Separator
You don’t have to set the Separator unless you are sorting paragraphs organized in
tabular form.
If the paragraphs contain, for example, names, street addresses, city names, etc.
delimited by separator characters, you can tell TextMaker how to recognize the
separate parts of each address by checking one of the following options:
Spaces
Tabs
User defined (here you can enter the separator yourself)
An example:
You want to sort the following three paragraphs:
Peter Miller(Tab)5 University Ave.(Tab)Pleasantville, NY 12345
Thomas Chris Howe(Tab)24 Park Drive(Tab)Cambridge, NJ 20220
Claudia Fisher(Tab)1024 13th Street(Tab)Forest Park, IL 98765
In this case you should set the Separator option to Tabs, since the separate elements
of each address (name, street, city) are delimited by tabs.
Advantage: Now you can make use of the Sort by: option available in the sort
command dialog to specify a sort by Column 1, Column 2 or Column 3. Column 1
stands for the names, Column 2 for the streets, Column 3 for the cities.
If you selected Spaces instead of Tabs as the separator, TextMaker would see
every word in a paragraph as belonging to a separate “column” and would produce
an unwanted result.
208 Tables Manual TextMaker