sort dates

[Pammy]

I have dates formatted as 02/01/06, but when I sort in ascending order,
nothing seems to sort correct, there is a mixture of 06, 00, 05. I looked
for any character such as a space in front or a dot instead of a / to see if
this was the problem. Any thoughts?

 

[Gary''s Student]

First insure that they are genuine dates. If your date system is m/d/y then
02/01/06 will be 1 February 2006. Re-format the cell containing this value
to General and you should see: 38749

If this does not happen, then you are not using "real"dates

 

[Gord Dibben]

See GS's reply as well as this.

Try running the dates through the Data>Text to Columns Wizard.

Data>T to C>Next>Next>Column Data Format>Date.

MDY or DMY and Finish.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP