I see The module Convert is very good in accepting number formats recognise units combined units prefixes both symbol and name calculate that smart sortnumber It is not good in return isolated results eg that sortnumber only add table formatting btw the input number usually returned as is unchanged In my description convert calls are hidden from the article editor It is only used to get the plain time quantity in seconds number from any time unit input the core good convert trick That seconds number is fed into a sortkey creator like nts The value unit shown can be exactly the editor s input Could work is not very elegant What Jimp writes below is about the sortvalue calculated by convert my setup does not use that