Clean a pasted list without losing meaningful entries
Before importing a list into another application, decide what counts as the same item. Two identical product codes can be accidental duplicates; two identical attendance rows can represent separate events. Cleanup is appropriate only when repeated values have no meaning for your task.
A six-line example you can reproduce
Open Text Cleaner and choose Try an example. It loads the following list, including a blank fourth line and spaces around banana:
Apple
banana
apple
Apple
OrangeWith the default rules, the summary reports six input lines, four output lines, one removed duplicate and one removed blank. The remaining values are Apple, banana, apple and Orange, in that order. Trimming happens before duplicate comparison, so whitespace does not create a distinct value under the default settings.
Decide whether case matters
If the list contains ordinary labels and Apple and apple should be the same label, select Ignore letter case and clean again. Now there are three output lines and two removed duplicates. The first spelling, Apple, survives. For case-sensitive identifiers, leave the option off. This option lowercases text for comparison; it does not transliterate accents or establish that two names refer to the same person.
Sort after you choose the matching rule
Choose Sort A–Z to organize the retained values alphabetically. Sorting takes place after filtering and deduplication. If order carries meaning, such as a priority list, leave Keep original order selected. To sort a list without removing repeated entries, turn off Remove duplicates. To preserve intentional indentation, turn off Trim surrounding whitespace.
Check counts before copying into a spreadsheet
- Keep the original in a separate document.
- Run cleanup on a small sample that includes a duplicate, a blank and a case variant.
- Confirm the summary agrees with your expectations.
- Inspect the first and last output lines and a few items you know must remain.
- Copy or download the cleaned list, then verify the destination import preview.
Changing the input or any rule clears the previous result so that you cannot accidentally copy an output made with older settings. The tool handles a list as plain text with one item per line. A trailing newline creates an additional empty line for the count. Downloaded output uses newline separators.
When not to use line-based cleanup
A CSV field can contain a quoted newline, so physical lines need not correspond to records. This tool does not parse CSV, merge contacts or reconcile product catalogs by a chosen key. Use a structured-data tool for those jobs. Removing identical lines from a transaction log can erase real repeated events; review the meaning of the data before applying deduplication.