Excel Data Sorting

[Cheryl]

I am not a technical person and this might be the wrong group, but I have to
start somewhere. I have autofilters on my excel (2003 version) spreadsheet,
but when I try to sort within the filters it does not sort correctly...it
leaves in things I don't want and separates the data I do want with some of
that I don't want. This leaves me with incorrect numbers for reports. Any
Suggestions please?

Cheryl

 

[Sean Timmons]

OK, so you have the sheet filtered and are attempting to sort after
filtering? That will sort the visible cells, but that means they sort
everywhere within the sheet.

You can sort first, then filter. This all depends on what you are trying to
do.

 

[Cheryl]

As I said, I am not a tech person, so maybe I didn't explain well enough--let
me try again, just so I can believe that we are both on the same page. I
have an excel worksheet full of data. I want to sort it by the information
in one column. I have put in the autofilters on the top row. Now, I use the
drop down menu from one of the autofilters, but instead of only getting the
rows with that particular data, I am getting other rows as well. And, not
only are they giving me other data rows, but it is mixing them up as well. I
hope that this kind of clarifies my question.

Cheryl

 

[Gord Dibben]

You are in the right group but you are very short on details.

What is "not sort properly"?

What gets left in that should not be in?

What type of data are you sorting or filtering?


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Sean Timmons]

OK, Filter drop-downs will sort data alphabetically. Cells that have a space
as the first character would show first, then numbers, then letters. So, if
your data is in alphabetical order it is working as Excel wants it to work.

When the filter is added to the sheet, how it is added will determine what
is included.

If you highlight specific data and filter, only that data will be in the
drop-down. If you highluight the entier workbook, all rows will be available.
If you don't highlight anything, all data up to any possible blank row would
be included.

If you have data you don't want included, remove the filter highlight the
data you do want to include, then add the filter back on.

Filters are under the Data menu, under the Filter submenu.

Does that get your issue? Let us know