sorting a concatenated cell

[wmack]

I have a cell that is entered FIRSTNAME, LAST NAME. What I have done i
using TRIM LEFT MID and Finally Concatenate, switched the First nam
with the last name in a different column. Now all I want to be able t
do is to sort the cells alphabetically. I am sure that I need to us
another approach to this

 

[raypayette]

It seems to me that you should have sorted the data before concatenatin
them

 

[wmack]

well I can sort the data by the first name, but i want to sort it by the
last name. I have 3 years worth of data, so just changing the entry
method in not an option. Sorting a list of Dr's by first name is only
so useful....

 

[Dave Peterson]

Use =Trim(), =Left(), and =Mid() to separate the names into parts once more.

But this time, don't delete those pieces. Just hide the columns if you want.

Then you can sort by each piece.

In fact, you can use a formula to concatenate the pieces into the full name.
But I'd do the data entry using those idividual fields.