Database features should allow you to have some control over the arrangement of your data. Excel has a very powerful sorting feature which comes in handy many, many times. It is well worth learning how to sort to let you have more control over your own data.

Let's use this short table of grades for a collection of students.

You might wish to rearrange the students and display them alphabetically.

Be careful!!!

Alan will move to the top of the list, but what about Alan's grades? You want to sort not only the names, but also have the grades follow the sort process too!

It's fairly easy to be sure you select the columns beside the column you wish to sort--just select all of the columns BEFORE you begin the sort process. (Jan might like to get a better deal)

Start by clicking on Cell A1 and dragging to Cell E10. This will highlight all of the cells in your data table. You might note that the first cell you selected is setoff from the others by remaining white.

Once you have selected your table, you select Sort from the Menu by clicking on Data and highlighting the Sort option from the dropdown collection of choices.

 

Take note of some of the other choices. We will be using some of them in other ways.

 

The Sort Panel is displayed with several default settings already picked for you.

You may elect to keep these settings as displayed and click OK.

You may elect to change some of these settings to reflect the kind of sorting you wish on your data.

It would be useful to comment on some of the choices you have in this panel.

 

The downarrow to the right of the Names let's you view the other column headings in your table of data.

If a particular table has no column headings, the choices will be by Column (Column A, Column B, etc.) Highlight your choice and select with a click.

The radio buttons suggest Ascending. Click in Descending if that is your choice.

Comment: Ascending or descending has different meanings depending on the contents of your data table. Ascending text is ordered from A - Z while ascending dates are ordered from earliest to most recent. It depends on the cell format for your data.

Original Table of Data	Table of Data after a Sort on Names

Excel supports nested or internal sorts up to three levels. We need to investigate what this means so you can choose when these "extra" sorts will be helpful.

Suppose you would like to sort the table of data on one of the disciplines, say Art. What would you like for Excel to do when two or more people make the same grade in Art? That is, how do you want the order of the names to be displayed?

In this example, we will first select the block of cells that represents our table.

 

Then we will choose to sort on the discipline of Art and we want Art sorted in Ascending order.

 

In the event there are "ties" in Art grades, we will display the rows of ties using the Names also in Ascending order.

 

 

Let's review the results of this sort to see if the logic of these requests make sense when you look at the result.

In this example, there were 3 A's in Art and the rows are arranged in alphabetical order by the Names column. Note that Fred, Judith, Mike and Peter each made a B and these are grouped alphabetically. Finally, Jan and Jim are sorted alphabetically and they both made a C in Art.

 

Sorting your data on the column of choice is a most useful feature in giving you the power to display your data in one of many different arrangements that would suit your purposes.