Sorting

Unlike AutoFilter or Advanced Filtering, Excel’s sorting options are fairly simple and much easier to use. 

There are two types of sorts: ones that apply to a table and ones that apply unformatted data ranges.

1. Table Sorts are just regular sorts that are done on columns from data tables. The examples given within this entry are going to be ranged sorts so there’s not much to explain here that won’t be explained later.

2. Range Sorts are sorts done on columns from unformatted data ranges. There are no significant differences between the two besides that range sorts don't distinguish column headers.

To Sort a Cell Range:

1. Select the range of data you’d like to sort.

2. Go to Data - > Sort & Filter - > Sort

Likewise, if you only want to sort alphabetically, just select a cell within the column you’d like to sort and click either buttons:

In Sorting, there are four areas of customizability given to the user: Column, Sorting Value, Order, and Level. 

Provided is an image of the Sorting dialog box:

1. Column: The column in which items are sorted. For example, if you’re trying to do an alphabetical sort on the Names, ‘Name’ would be under ‘Column’.

2. Sorting Value: What Excel should look at when applying it’s sorting rules. The four are: Cell Values, Cell Color, Font Color, and Conditional Formatting Icon.

Note that, besides Cell Values, you can only customize the order by each formatting instance and whether or not it should go ‘On Top’ or ‘On Bottom’.

3. Order: How you want Excel to sort your values. For example, you may want to do it Oldest to Newest, Smallest to Largest, A to Z, etc.

Note that for Numbers & Times, Excel will provide a default Smallest to Largest & Largest to Smallest option, for Dates, Oldest & Newest, and for Text, A to Z & Z to A.

Custom Order:

When sorting on Cell Values, you can create something called a Custom List/Order for any columns whose values might not be usefully sorted by A to Z or smallest to largest. A custom list could be Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat or Small, Medium, Large.

For example, you are a club president and your job is to collect funds for your club’s t-shirts. You want to sort your data table by size and then by payment method to make your job easier.

You can do as follows:

1. Click on any cell within the table.

2. Go to Data - > Sort & Filter - > Sort.

3. Sort by: T-Shirt Size and Cell Values.

4. Click under Order and select Custom List… 

5. Click on NEW LIST and type: Small, Medium, Large, X-Large, click Add and then OK. You can also press enter after every level instead of entering a comma.

6. Do the same thing for Payment Method, except make the sort Cash - > Check - > Card.

7. Click OK.

8. Your data should now look as such:

Note that sorts aren’t updated continuously, you must reapply them in the sorting dialog box. That’s pretty much everything there is to sorts, thanks for reading my blog : - )