A106 Step-by-step: Sorting
Microsoft Excel 4.0 for Macintosh
Excel's built-in sort tool lets you rearrange the rows of the spreadsheet. For example, you might want to arrange a list of names in alphabetical order, or a list of planets by size.
You may sometimes want to sort on more than one column (or "key"). For example, you might want to sort employees by last name, and sort the employees with the same last names by first name. Excel has a mechanism for doing this in one shot, but it is probably easier to do this in two steps. The important thing is to do the least important search first. In the example above, you would first sort the list by first name, and then by last name.
To sort a region of a spreadsheet
1. Save your document
This is always a good idea. There are several short sequences of mistakes which could seriously mess up a document when trying to sort it, so it's a very good idea to make a backup.
2. Select the area you want to sort
As always when selecting in Excel, use the white +. Make sure you don't get any column headers or extra cells. Also, be sure you get all the columns and all the rows you want, and no more.
3. Choose Sort... from the Data menu
Surprise! It's a dialog box.
4. Select the column by which you will be sorting.
This is not normal selection. The highlighting will not change, but you will get moving, dotted lines around the area you select. You want the numbers or labels that are to be put in order; for example, you might want to select the last names.
5. If you want a backward sort, choose Decreasing
This is in the lower left of the dialog box.
6. Click OK
If it didn't work, close this document without saving it, open the one you saved, and try again...