Sorting a column in Microsoft Excel is real easy.
In a spreadsheet you can sort numerical, date, and text fields fairly easily. Keep in mind that just because they look like a number or date, doesn’t mean that they are. They can be text, which will sort differently.
For example, if you have a series of numbers, 1 through 12, but they are stored as text, then sorting them would yield 1, 10, 11, 12, 2, 3, … , 9. This is because Excel would look at each digit individually, instead of looking at the number.
Open a spreadsheet, and click in the column that you wish to sort. As a matter of habit, I normally click in the first row of the column I wish to sort, but this isn’t required.- Then, from the ribbon bar, select the home tab, if you haven’t already.
- Then click on the Sort & Filter Button. This will bring up a extra menu for you.
- Click on the Sort A to Z if you want to sort in ascending order, i.e. from lowest to highest. Click Sort Z to A to sort in descending order – from highest to lowest.
Below is a video show you what to do. It even includes an example of sorting a column of dates, stored as text instead of dates.
Quick Tip: How to Sort a Column of Info in Microsoft Excel was originally found on Access 2 Learn
