Example
Before
Ottawa Toronto vancouver Montreal Calgary
After
Calgary Montreal Ottawa Toronto vancouver
Numbers sort naturally
Items that contain numbers sort the way people expect, so “Item 2” comes before “Item 10”. A plain character-by-character sort would put “Item 10” first.
Sorting words vs. lines
Sort by line to order a list with one item per line. Sort by word to split a sentence or paragraph into separate words and sort those.