Data Sort in Excel not working

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sandy M
  • Start date Start date
S

Sandy M

I am using Excel 97 and trying to sort some lines of
data, first by Customer, then by Description, then
by Date. These are column headings and I select them
in the sort window.

Sometimes this works, and sometimes it does not do the
sort.

The reports are the same formats and headings.

I've checked for blank lines or other weird things
and doing a side-by-side comparison of the reports
where it works and the ones where it doesn't, I can't
see an obvious difference.

Can anyone give me any ideas of what to check for?

Thank you,

Sandy M
 
Try this

Let's presume your Description is in Column B and starts
on Row 2 with the word Buyer:

Go to a blank column on both reports and type

=len(b2)

Both Reports should return the value of 5, because there
are only 5 letters used to spell the word Buyer, but say
Report 1 returns the value for 5 and Report 2 returns 6.
Most likely, someone typed "Buyer " in Report 2, but there
is a blank space you can't view or see when printing a
report.

If this is the case, there is a quick way to fix all these
errors. Go to another blank column on each report and
type:

=trim(b2)

and copy this function down in this column for as many
rows of data that you have. Then, Copy, Paste Special,
Value, the trimmed values back over to Column B.
Remember, do this to each report so both have the same
length (you can use the =len function over again to
check). Then run your sort over again.

Hope this helps :-)
 
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