Not long ago I posted about terms that just bug me. One of the commenters suggested the addition of in order to, on the theory that it's just grandiloquence. This isn't untrue. For example, the BBC suggests that in order to and just plain to "convey exactly the same meaning when conveying purpose."
However, sometimes I actually find myself inserting in order to. This is not because I love wordiness, haha, but because there are contexts in which it helps disambiguate a phrase. Consider these examples:
The method is required to support binary conversion.
The method is required in order to support binary conversion.
The target server is a setting that you add to publish data.
The target server is a setting that you add in order to publish data.
It's a prerequisite that you need to deploy a web site.
It's a prerequisite that you need in order to deploy a web site.
You can assign query strings to the Query property to return data.
You can assign query strings to the Query property in order to return data.
Sign In To Download Credentials
Sign In In Order To Download Credentials
The phrase in order to introduces a so-called infinitive phrase. If the phrase that follows to can be interpreted as either an infinitive phrase or as a noun phrase, it's advisable to include in order to disambiguate. This tends to come up with verbs that have a phrasal relationship with the preposition to. As you can see, examples include add [to], need [to], assign [to], required [to], and like [to].
Of course, native speakers can often tell from context what the intended meaning is. In our case, tho, we know that we have many readers who read English as a second language. And one of our "readers" is also machine translation program, which is getting better, but which needs all the help that we can offer for disambiguating constructions.