Presortation

Presortation is a relatively uncommon and variably defined term that generally refers to the act of arranging or organizing information or items before presenting them to an audience or system. Because it is not widely standardized, its precise meaning depends on the domain and the author using it. In many contexts, presortation sits between sorting and presentation, signaling a preparatory step rather than a final display.

In data processing and software, presortation may describe arranging records or entries prior to rendering results, exporting data, or feeding items into a visualization or report. The goal is often to improve readability, ensure a deterministic order, or optimize downstream processing. In content management and publishing, presortation can refer to the curation and ordering of articles, products, or media before they appear in a list, feed, or catalog, with ordering guided by criteria such as date, relevance, or category.

In other fields, including logistics or marketing, the term may appear as a shorthand for a pre-display or pre-routing stage, though presort or presorting remains the standard terminology in many professional communities. Because presortation overlaps with well-established terms like presorting and presentation, its usage can lead to ambiguity. Clear definitions are typically provided by authors or organizations to specify whether presortation denotes a sorting-before-display process, a presentation-oriented arrangement, or another preparatory step.

See also: presorting, sorting, presentation, data visualization, content curation.