Are blank lines treated as their own line?

Yes, an empty line between two lines of text is still a shufflable item, so it can end up anywhere in the output — remove blank lines first if you don't want that.

How is this different from the Paragraph Shuffler?

This tool shuffles by individual newline, so a multi-line paragraph gets its internal lines scattered; the Paragraph Shuffler instead keeps each blank-line-separated block intact and only reorders whole paragraphs.

Can I use this to shuffle a CSV file?

You can shuffle the row order of a CSV this way (each row is one line), but it won't touch the columns within a row — use the Text Column Shuffler if you also want to reorder columns.

Will the same line ever end up in the same position?

It's possible by chance, especially with few lines — a uniform-random shuffle doesn't guarantee every line moves, it only guarantees every ordering is equally likely.

Text Line Shuffler - Randomize the Order of Lines Online

Overview

Introduction

Randomizing the order of lines in a text file is a common need for shuffling playlists, quiz question banks, name lists, or CSV row order without touching the content of each line.

This tool splits on newline characters, shuffles the resulting array with Fisher-Yates, and rejoins with newlines, leaving each individual line's text completely unchanged.

What Is Text Line Shuffler?

A line-order randomizer for any newline-delimited text: to-do lists, name lists, CSV rows, playlists, or code snippets where line order doesn't matter semantically.

It treats every line — including blank ones — as an independent, movable unit.

How Text Line Shuffler Works

The input is split on `\n` into an array of lines (blank lines become empty-string entries).

Fisher-Yates shuffle reorders the array uniformly at random, and the lines are rejoined with `\n` to produce the output.

When To Use Text Line Shuffler

Use it to randomize the order names are called in a raffle or roll call, or to shuffle quiz questions so no two students see them in the same order.

Use it to randomize a playlist's track order or shuffle rows of tabular data before further processing.

Often used alongside Paragraph Shuffler, Text Column Shuffler and Word Shuffler.

Features

Advantages

Preserves each line's exact text — only the order changes, nothing is altered, trimmed, or reformatted.
Handles any number of lines, from a short list to a large file, in one pass.
Uses an unbiased Fisher-Yates shuffle so every possible line order is equally likely.

Limitations

Blank lines are shuffled like any other line, which can move gaps to unexpected places — strip them first if that's not desired.
It only reorders whole lines; it doesn't shuffle content within a line (see the Word Shuffler or Text Column Shuffler for that).

Examples

Shuffling a short list

Input

Alice
Bob
Carol

Output

Carol
Alice
Bob

Each name is one line and moves as a whole.

Shuffling with a blank line

Input

Item 1

Item 2

Output

Item 2
Item 1

The blank line is treated as its own shufflable entry.

Best Practices & Notes

Best Practices

Remove trailing or accidental blank lines first if you want a clean, gap-free shuffled list.
Use this before a raffle or roll-call to keep the process visibly unbiased.

Developer Notes

Splitting is done on a plain `\n`, so files using Windows-style `\r\n` line endings will keep a trailing `\r` on each shuffled line; normalize line endings first if that matters for your downstream use.

Text Line Shuffler Use Cases

Shuffling names for a raffle or randomized roll call
Randomizing quiz question order per student
Shuffling playlist track order or list-based content

Common Mistakes

Not noticing that blank lines count as shufflable items, resulting in gaps appearing in unexpected places.
Expecting column-level shuffling — this tool only reorders whole lines.

Tips

Trim your input to remove stray blank lines before shuffling if you want a tight list.
Combine with the Random Item Picker if you only need one line chosen, not the whole list reordered.

Text Line Shuffler