THE WRITE STUFF SORTING FEATURE

by Dick Estel

Ever wish you could quickly and easily alphabetize a list? Most word processing programs allow you to
do this. The Write Stuff does it and with a couple of extra bells and/or whistles.

To sort a list, you have to use the "eat text" feature. This can be a little scary (will it give me back my
processed words?)--but always be sure to SAVE your document first and you can reload it if
something goes wrong.

Most word processing sort features work on lists which have returns after each item (such as a list of
club member names) and TWS is no different. If I tried to alphabetize this article, it would re-order the
PARAGRAPHS by the first letter in each one. If I wanted to alphabetize every word, I would need a
return after each word.

Once you have typed your list (and SAVED it), type [CONTROL] e and then continue to press p (for
paragraph) to "eat" all the items you want sorted. Next, hit the back arrow, followed by [CONTROL]
[SHIFT] r. A prompt will appear at the top allowing a choice between A-Z or Z-A sorting. Next you
are offered a choice of sorting on column 1 through 10. This is a feature most Commodore word
processors I've seen don't offer. It's really great if you want to alphabetize a list of names by last name,
but have them appear in normal order (John Doe, Joe Dokes, etc.) By selecting column 2, TWS will
alphabetize by the second word in each column. If you have names with middle initials or such names as
J. Pierpont Morgan or Henry David Thoreau--a second column sort would use Pierpont and David.
The Write Stuff even has a way to get around this--just use a shifted space between the first and middle
name and the sort routine will treat the two words as one.

Thus you would type Henry, hold down the [SHIFT] key while pressing the [SPACE BAR], then type
David Thoreau normally. TWS will see Henry David as the first "column" and Thoreau as the second.

Once you select the column to sort on, press return. The screen will flash for a while and your list will
magically reappear in the desired order.

The "eat text" feature places the data in a 9K buffer, so in the case of a very large list, you might have to
do several partial sorts and combine them. This should not be a frequent problem for most users, but I
have done it successfully; you just need to think about what you are doing. TWS 128 gives you a larger
buffer than the 64 version.

When using this feature (or any aspect of the "eat text" option), remember that once text is in the buffer
and you return to edit mode, eating even a single additional character will ERASE everything in the
buffer! If you need to collect items from different parts of the document for sorting (or moving, copying,
etc.), use [CONTROL] [SHIFT] E and it will retain the previous data and add the new data to the
buffer. Note that previewing the document will also erase the contents of the buffer!

(Sorting is covered on page 23 of TWS 64 manual; eating/restoring text on pages 12, 19 and 23.)

(From The Interface, newsletter of Fresno Commodore User Group, via the Commodore Information
Center, http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html)