sorting by one column

[Guest]

Hi. I have a workshett problem & would appreciate any help. I have a
woorkshett with a large number of columns for data tracking responses. I
need to be able to select one column to sort by & have all other columns
follow so that the information in the rows matches. For instance, if I sort
by a name alphabetically, all the following rows need to stay with the name
they were with initially. However, the sheet is very large and when I pick
the column to sort by Excell wants to only sort the columns visible on the
screen & the rest of the data becomes mis-matched. If I try highlighting the
screen to sort all data it wants to only sort by the first column, not the
column of choice. I'd like to not have to move columns around just to sort.
Any ideas?

 

[Dave Peterson]

First, I never let excel guess at the range to sort. Too many bad things can
happen.

I select my range first, then use data|sort to specify my key columns.

If you sort your data lots of different ways, you may want to try this
technique:
http://contextures.com/xlSort02.html
From Debra Dalgleish's site.