Please help - sorting list of numbers

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Hello,

I am not so good with using excel and nobody in my office can figure out
what I'm doing wrong.

I am trying to sort a list of folders first by Box Letter and then by Folder
Number. I want my list to look like this:
Box Folder
A 1
A 2
A 3
B 1
B 2
B 3
and so on.

But whenever I sort the information, the numbers are all out of order. My
list looks more like 1, 10, 11, 12, 2, 21, 22, 3, etc. I know if I were to
insert a 0 before each single digit number, it would sort correctly, however
there are several thousand entries on this list and I don't want to go
through and add several thousand 0's. I think it has something to do with
the formatting of my columns, but I've changed it to everything available and
still it sorts incorrectly. What else can I do?
 
It's because your numbers are formatted as text. Simply doing a
Format->Cells->Number doesn't fix unfortunately. Follow these steps to get
it working:

Copy an empty cell
Select your range of numbers
Right click choose "Paste Special"
Select "Add" and hit OK
 
I'd bet the values (1,2,3...) are TEXT values, not numeric. Reformat as
General, then copy an unused (empty) cell & paste special values & "Add" to
the range & try again.
Bob Umlas
Excel MVP
 
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