Original question by jeeslawees on eccoppro list
Initial suggestions by Alec, Procedure by Don Johnson, minor tweaks by Alec

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 Don Johnson (dcsj@telus.net) wrote (in part)  (on 2009-07-05 at 00:38):
> jeeslawees wrote: I created a Pop-Up List years ago called Industry Keyword.  As I've entered new Contacts (Items) over the years, I've entered new Industry Keywords.  Ecco automatically adds these to the bottom of the list of  Values.
 
> > Is there any way to alphabetize this list of values in one quick shot?  Or do you have to go thru the tedious process of Re-Order Up or Down in the Edit Values pop-up window?

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> Alec's reply gave me the idea for this. I had recently created a similar  
> problem for myself and wasn't looking forward to manually alphabetizing  
> the field.
 
Alec: This sounds like what I must have done (it was a year or so ago)
 
> 1. Make sure ALL filters are off a notepad view of all items with the  
> PopUp column you want to alphabetize.
>
> 2. Select all items and export including the Column values for the PopUp  
> column - export to a csv text file.
>
> 3. Open the text file in Excel, sort by the PopUp column values.
 
Alec commented - IIRC - I used Notetab to
1) strip the items ^!replace ".*?\(t.*?) >> "$2" rwsai (now have *JUST* the popup values)
2) sort (removing duplicates)
3) double the 1st and only column ^!replace "(.*)" >> "$1\t$2" rwais (now have 1st-column = 2nd-column = item = popup value
 
This was where my memory of having a folder with one item for each popup value containg the popup value came from
 
Balance of procedure sounds exactly correct, except that I maintained the imported items so I could manually update it as I added new popup values. If / when the number of "unsorted items" at the bottom of the list got out of control again I could just sort the folder by item_name, export, skip steps 3 and 4 and repeat steps 5, through 10
 
 
> 4. Save the text file and exit Excel
>
> 5. Import the text file into a temporary notepad, with the PopUp column  
> values as a new PopUp column called "Industry Keywords 2" or whatever.
>
> 6. In the notepad you exported from, Insert the new PopUp column beside  
> the old Popup Column.
>
> 7. Run the Merge column values command: Column | Merge column values...,  
> merging from the Old PopUp to the New PopUp
>
> 8. You should now have your keywords properly noted and the values  
> alphabetized.
>
> 9. Delete your imported items in the temporary notepad, delete the new  
> columns created by the import and creation of the temporary notepad (in  
> folder view), and Delete your Old PopUp column.
>
> 10. Rename your New PopUp column to the Old PopUp name and you are back  
> in business.
>
> This actually takes much less time to do than to describe! The  
> re-importation is simply to create a new popup value column that is now  
> alphabetized. The imported items would just be duplicates, so they  
> aren't needed after the import is finished.
>
> There might be easier ways, but these steps worked for me.