filtering help

[Guest]

My boss uses filtering to to look up information. Normally she can filter on
column A, which is what she wants to do. Now when she highlights column A
and filters, the drop-down arrow appears on column K. What could be
preventing the drop-down arrow from staying on column A? Thanks.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Make sure she removed any previous Autofilter.
Data|filter|autofilter (not checked)

Then select the whole range (not just a column) and apply
data|filter|autofilter.

Excel likes to remember what you previously did. Sometimes, it's not what you
want.

I select the whole range and don't leave it to excel to guess what I want.

 

[Guest]

Do you think there is some way we've told the filter to always go to a
specific column rather than column A? Is there anything in Tools, options,
that would do this or undo it? Thanks so much.

 

[Guest]

Also, we're networked. Would that have anything to do with this? Thanks.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't think that there's anything in Tools|options that will affect this (or
networking).

I think it's just excel's way to "help" you by remembering what you did before.

If all she wants to do is filter by column A, selecting column A first should
work, too.