-SOLVED- Joining 3 notepads into 1 (in order -first line of each into new notepad)

no hanks

Hi, so I have been joining 2 note pads into one just fine by:
step1. Alt+c with 1,1 spacing on both notepads ( this puts a number in front of each line)
Step2: making new notepad then coping both in the order I wanted them
step3: line operation - sort lines lexicographically accenting to put them in order
step4: replace (?-s)^.{4}(.*?\R) with \1 to removing the numbers that were place infront

Example of output:
Notepad1 line1
notepad2 line1
notepad1 line2
notepad2 line 2

I then wanted to do this with 3 notpads but using the same steps as above doesnt work as expected. sometimes it puts them in the wrong order

Example of output:
Notepad1 line1
notepad2 line1
notepad3 line1
notepad1 line2
notepad3 line2 <— this is in the wrong spot
notepad2 line 2

im hoping this is a simple fix or theres a extra step for doing 3

PeterJones

@no-hanks said in Joining 3 notepads into 1 (in order -first line of each into new notepad):

im hoping this is a simple fix or theres a extra step for doing 3

You just need a secondary identifier. Before doing the Alt+C to number a file, add an extra column first: in file 1, make that extra column all 1s; in file 2, make the extra columns all 2s; in file 3, make the extra column all 3s. Then do the Alt+C to put the auto-number before that.

START

file1               file2               file3
-----               -----               -----
apple               awkward             Andy
banana              boorish             Barbara
corn                crazed              Charlie

Extra Column

file1               file2               file3
-----               -----               -----
1apple              2awkward            3Andy
1banana             2boorish            3Barbara
1corn               2crazed             3Charlie

Alt+C 1,1

file1               file2               file3
-----               -----               -----
11apple             12awkward           13Andy
21banana            22boorish           23Barbara
31corn              32crazed            33Charlie

Copied into one

11apple
21banana
31corn
12awkward
22boorish
32crazed
13Andy
23Barbara
33Charlie

Sorted

11apple
12awkward
13Andy
21banana
22boorish
23Barbara
31corn
32crazed
33Charlie

Then delete the starting numbers.

no hanks

@PeterJones Awesome, thanks that was a super simple fix!