Advanced Sorting In Excel
The sort function in Excel makes it easy to sort items by name or date or
amount. Just be sure to select all of your data (nothing worse
than sorting four columns while the fifth stays in place!) and click on one of
the sort icons in the toolbar.
For more control, go to Data > Sort… and choose the column
for the primary sort key (like State) the secondary sort key (like City), and
then the tertiary (like Zip Code).
The spreadsheet below shows the population of individual states. The problem
here is that they’re arranged horizontally. Did you know that you can sort
left to right as well as up and down?
The major difference between the two is that there is no such thing as a
header column. When you choose the range to sort, make sure you don’t
include the titles in column A. Then go to Data > Sort…
At the bottom left of the Sort dialog box you’ll see Options…
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Click Options… and you’ll see the dialog box
below. At the very bottom, click on Sort left to right.
Remember: All of the selected data gets sorted,
including the titles in the first column so be careful.
Also notice at the top of the Sort Options dialog box the dropdown box called
First key sort order. If you saw the newsletter from December of 2001, you know
how to create custom lists for the AutoFill
function. You can use the same lists for sort order. For instance, imagine
you want a department list to be sorted not alphabetically, but in the following
order: Administrative, Accounting, Sales and Marketing, and R&D. Create a
custom list containing those names and then choose the list in the dropdown box
above. Your department list will be sorted in that order.
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