Alphabetize text in Pages on iPAD not in table

Pages has no non-table sort facility on iPadOS or macOS. If this were on a Mac, I would recommend WordService which has two services that do exactly what they say with selected text lists in-place with Pages or other apps.

• Sort Lines Ascending
• Sort Lines Descending

Since iPadOS has no scripting language and no AppleScript/Objective-C exists there, the ability to build a sorting Shortcut is also absent.

If you have a recent Mac, then you can use a Universal clipboard to copy your list in Pages for iPad to the clipboard, and on the Mac, paste the clipboard content, sort it, and copy it back to the clipboard. With the list content still selected in Pages for iPadOS, you then choose paste and the list is updated with the sorted clipboard content.

Use Universal Clipboard to copy and paste between your Apple devices - Apple Support

I just tested this between an M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 17.6.1) with Pages v14.1 and macOS Sonoma 14.6.1. On macOS, I used the following Terminal command to roundtrip the sorted clipboard content back to Pages on iPadOS.

In the absence of any sorting facility in Pages for iPadOS, this PITA is better than nothing. One could even write a Shortcut on macOS to do this without having to launch the Terminal app.

In the iOS App Store, search for Text Workflow: Text Converter. This app will allow you to copy/paste into the app, perform an alphabetic sort, and then copy/paste the sorted result back into Pages for iOS. Everything is done on a device with no need for a Mac or even network involvement.

Caveats: in App purchases:

• Text Workflow Full access (1 yr) : 6.99 USD
• Lifetime premium: 14.99 USD
• Text Workflow Full Access (1 mo): 0.99 USD

I have no affiliation with this developer and receive no financial or otherwise benefit for mentioning this product.

KiaOra1 wrote:

Thank you. It’s ridiculous. Do you happen to know largest page size allowed?

No, I don't and Apple does not make that information available.

And here is a link to the following Shortcut that avoids launching the Terminal, but achieves the same sorted list result whether local to the Mac or using Universal Clip Board per the previous post. Provided you have macOS Ventura, Sonoma, or (untested) Sequoia running on the Mac, click that preceding link to install the Shortcut on your Mac (with your permission).

One copies the list content in Pages (iOS, iPadOS, macOS) to the clipboard, runs this Shortcut on the Mac, and then back in Pages with the list content still selected and performs a paste to update to a sorted list.

In the Run Shell Script action, the Input: is set to Clipboard.

Tested: Universal Clipboard between M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 17.6.1) and M2 Mac Mini Pro (macOS 14.6.1) and with Pages v14.1 on both platforms.

MS Word has a button to sort ascending/descending text lists outside of a table. Maybe Pages for iPad is the wrong tool for you if the penalty is lost productivity and lack of features?

You are welcome.