Problem sorting date columns.....Cross Posted by mistake

[Dupatt]

I have had a problem with sorting by dates and sometimes with numbers after
pasting files from MS Access 2003 into Excel 2003. I use Access to query
out files that I need to analyze, then I analyze them in Excel.
I have had instances when some of the files will not sort ascending or
descending even after I have formatted the dates in the entire column and
have reformatted all of the other columns; it is like they don't format with
the others. I usually have about 12 to 15 columns, some text some numbers
and some dates. Can anyone explain how this happens? Am I doing something
wrong? Thanks, Pat

 

[stew]

The problem is that the dates are being pasted as text, rather than
integers (which then have a date format applied to look like a date).
You need to find a way to convert the date into the Excel Serial
Number format.

Two possible solutions are:

In each cell press F2 (to edit the cell contents) and then press
return. Repeat for each cell.

or

Select all cells in your column, and select "Text to Columns" from the
"Data" menu.
In my case, I just selected the default options in the wizard
(Delimited, Tab, General)

and the dates should convert from text and into names - displayed as
dates.

Stew

 

[Dupatt]

Thank you. I will give that a try. This has been very frustrating.