Sorting in Writer

users
#1

I received a document which, essentially is a document of song lyrics.
However, they were typed in at random, as they were received. I now want to
sort the songs by song title and can't figure a way to do this. The format
is the following:
The song title, the artist, the lyrics. Each line is essentially a new
paragraph so I cannot sort by paragraph. I need some way of marking the
beginning and the ending of each song, having the contents between these
two marks recognised as a unit, and then sorting these units. Does anyone
have any ideas, without having to select each song, cutting it and then
pasting it in its correct position alphabetically

#2

How many songs?
Steve

#3

Pat Brown wrote:

> I received a document which, essentially is a document of song lyrics.
> However, they were typed in at random, as they were received. I now want to
> sort the songs by song title and can't figure a way to do this. The format
> is the following:
> The song title, the artist, the lyrics. Each line is essentially a new
> paragraph so I cannot sort by paragraph. I need some way of marking the
> beginning and the ending of each song, having the contents between these
> two marks recognised as a unit, and then sorting these units. Does anyone
> have any ideas, without having to select each song, cutting it and then
> pasting it in its correct position alphabetically
>
Here is a recipe that could help you, but it requires the Alternative Searching extension (aka Alternative Find & Replace)

1. Choose two characters that do not appear in your text. I chose # an §.
2. Mark every song title, except the first one, with # at the beginning of the line.
3. With Alt. Find & replace:
   Search For: \p
   Replace: §
   Check "regular expressions" box
   Replace all
4. With Alt. Find & Replace:
   Search for: §#
   Replace \p
   ("regular expressions" box still checked)
5. Select all text and then Tools > Sort.
6. With Alt. Find & Replace:
   Search for: §
   Replace \p
   ("regular expressions" box still checked)

As far as I know, steps 4 and 6 cannot be done with the regular find and replace as you can't specify a paragraph mark in the replace. At least i don't know how to.

#4

Piet van Oostrum wrote:

> As far as I know, steps 4 and 6 cannot be done with the regular find and replace as you can't specify a paragraph mark in the replace. At least i don't know how to.

Well, in the meantime I found that \n in the Replace field with the regular Find and Replace represents a paragraph break. In the Search For field $ should be used. The recipe with the regular Find and Replace then becomes:
(all Find/replace with "Regular expressions"" ticked):

1. Choose two characters that do not appear in your text. I chose # an §.
2. Mark every song title, except the first one, with # at the beginning of the line.
3. Find & replace:
   Search For: $
   Replace With: §
   Replace all
4. Find & Replace:
   Search for: §#
   Replace With: \n
5. Select all text and then Tools > Sort.
6. Find & Replace:
   Search for: §
   Replace with: \n

#5

I've got a thought of what might work, but I'd need to see some of the data first.

Do you have any way of providing a portion of the doc for everyone to view?