Is there a way to sort items by the number of characters?

I would like to list items by the link of the words

I have names in a column

thomas
peter
lawrence
jay

and I would like to bulk sort them

jay
peter
thomas
lawrence

I have several thousand names and need them sorted this way, please help

Thank you

This is generally done with helper columns.

Stick a column beside the column with the words. (I'll assume your words are in column A, and the column you inserted is column B)

Put the following formula in B2 (assuming your words start in A2):
=LEN(A2)

And copy down.

Now sort based on column B, which has the lengths of each cell in A. (You may also want to make the second criteria of the sort column A, so that it is first sorted by length, and then sorted alphabetically.)

HTH,
Scott

Once I get the lenght of the words

Like

5
6
8
5
3

Then I use the sort a-z function and it does not work

Can you help me with how to sort?