sorting date

[Brent]

Hi- I have a list of dates in a column that I want to sort by- the problem
is that it sorts it in a way that makes no sense to me- is there a way to
sort by year/month in ascending manner?

Thanks
Brent

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Brent,

It sounds as if they're not true dates, but text. If you do Format - Cells - Number tab,
and set it to General, you should get a number if they're true dates. If they still look
like dates, they're not true dates, but plain old text. As such, they'll only sort
alphamerically, not in date order.

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Brent,
You shouldn't have any trouble sorting dates if they are
Excel dates. So first of let's see what you actually have.

If your your date is in column A then paste the column
into another sheet as values.

A2: contains a date
B2: =ISNUMBER(A2)
C2: =Text(A2,"yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss")

Check to see what the number format of A2 is
Select A2, Format, cells, ...
what do you see on the left that is highlight, and what on the right
then select custom format (format, cells, custom)
what do you see there.

There are additional things that you can check see
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#debugformat



--

 

[Nick Hodge]

Brent

I suspect the dates are not being seen as so by Excel or you have a regional
issue problem

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)
www.nickhodge.co.uk

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