Sort Not Including 1st Row

[RJ]

Office XP and 2003

Every now and then, when selecting a range of rows
in a spreadsheet, then clicking Data / Sort, the first
row in the range gets deselected by Excel.
I've noticed this in different spreadsheets at different
times. This is very annoying. Is this a bug, or am I doing
something wrong?

 

[Dave Peterson]

Excel likes to guess. If you make that first row different enough from the rest
of the data, it'll guess that it's a header row.

Do you have the first row formatted differently -- bold font, italics, and so
forth?

 

[RJ]

Thanks. No. It is the same as all the others.
It has happened numerous times, in various
spreadsheets. Yet not evertime in those same
spreadsheets. I figured it is just a shortcoming
of Excel.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Personal, I don't like to let excel guess--ever.

If you're doing the same sort over and over, maybe you could just record a macro
when you do it manually. Then rerun that macro when you need the data sorted.

 

[GoDario27]

When I don't want it to guess, I just use Data>Sort and pick the heade
option -- only 2 or 3 more clicks and it doesn't screw it up

 

[grahammal]

Surely when you select the first item on your list to be sorted and the
select 'Data' then 'Sort' you just make sure that the 'No Header row
option is selected.
Always works for me

 

[Silvabod]

Could be a "mouse" thing - a little finger tremble and the selection dips
below the top row? It's not immediately obvious, esp. on high resolution
(small cells) ...happened to me more than once.
Automate it if you can - by range-name if possible - avoids the problem.