Paragraph Explode

Rearrange the sentences of a paragraph by exploding it into pieces and putting them back in a new order with a few clicks. Works on desktop and mobile.

Your note is never touched until you confirm, and every change is a single edit, so one undo (Ctrl/Cmd+Z) restores the original.

Commands

Run these from the command palette. Each works on your selection if you have one, otherwise on the paragraph under the cursor (a block delimited by blank lines).

Command	What it does
Explode paragraph	Opens the reorder window with one entry per sentence.
Explode paragraph in place	Rewrites the paragraph as one sentence per line, right in the editor.
Explode selection into phrases	Like the first command, but splits your selection into phrases (commas, semicolons, colons, and words like "and", "but", "because"). Requires a selection.
Collapse exploded lines back into a paragraph	Joins the lines of an exploded paragraph back into one.

The reorder window

Pick pieces from Remaining to build the New order, then Apply. A Preview shows exactly what will be written.

Modes (switch at the top of the window at any time, nothing is lost):

Mode	Output
Paragraph	All pieces joined into one paragraph.
Sentence lines	One piece per line.
Notes	A bullet list. Pieces can be grouped into notes and indented into sub-points.

Building the order

• Click a piece to add it, or drag its handle (⋮⋮) into the New order at the position you want.
• Drag items in the New order to reorder them. Drag one back onto Remaining, or press Put back.
• Set aside parks a piece. Set-aside pieces can be clicked to bring them back, and are deleted or kept below the result when you apply.

Notes mode

• Group: select items (click, Shift+click for a range, Cmd/Ctrl+click to add) and merge them into one note. Ungroup splits them again.
• New note: press it (or N), then click pieces. They all join one note. Press N again to start the next note, and twice to stop.
• Indent / Outdent (Tab / Shift+Tab) move the selected notes one level at a time, up to six levels deep. The first bullet, and the first bullet after a heading, always stays at the top level. Output uses one tab per level.
• H1, H2, H3 (or H to cycle) turn the selected items into #, ## or ### headings, and Bullet turns them back. Headings are written without a bullet. They only appear in Notes mode; in the other modes they are written as normal text.

Keys: 1-9 pick the remaining piece with that number; Backspace undoes the last change; Enter applies; Esc cancels; N, G, U, H, Tab, Shift+Tab for notes as above; Alt+Up / Alt+Down move the selected item.

What it protects

Sentences are copied verbatim; only their order changes. Splitting does not happen inside:

• abbreviations (e.g., i.e., et al., Dr., vs., Fig., p., and more), initials such as "J. K. Rowling", or decimals like 3.14
• parentheses or brackets, so APA citations like (Smith et al., 2020. p. 4) stay whole
• [[wikilinks]], [links](https://example.com), URLs, inline code, footnotes like [^1], and citation keys like [@smith2020]

Headings, code blocks, tables, frontmatter, lists and quotes are skipped with a notice. A soft line break inside a sentence becomes a single space.

Settings

• Extra abbreviations: words ending in a period that should never end a sentence.
• Phrases: toggle splitting at punctuation and at conjunction words, and edit the word list.
• Reorder window: the mode the window opens in, and whether set-aside sentences are deleted or kept by default.

Known limits

• A single capital letter before a period ("Plan B. The next step") is treated as an initial and does not split.
• A sentence that is entirely in parentheses ("(See above.) Next.") does not split after the closing parenthesis.
• A sentence that starts with a lowercase letter is not treated as a new sentence.

Install

Once listed: Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search "Paragraph Explode".

Manual: download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/paragraph-explode/, then enable the plugin.

Development

npm install
npm run dev     # watch build
npm test        # vitest
npm run build   # type-check and production build

License

MIT