Sorting the "Right Way"

[Guest]

I do Excel training and have a question related to sorting. We cover sorting
and there are several ways to do this.
1) Select a cell in a column and select the a-z sort icon.
2) Select a cell and then select Data-Sort

Both of these ways work very well if there are no blank rows and no blank
coluumns. In other words, if one has not broken any of Bill Gates' rules
regarding the correct structure of lists.

Sometimes I have students tell me that they always highlight the records or
use the select all box and then they go through the sort procedure. I usually
say that it really is not necessary to highlight the records but should I be
telling them something different. I would like to get them out of this
highlighting habit but not cause any problems when they get back to work.

Any suggestions by you Excel gurus that would be helpful to explain to my
students under only what specific Excel circumstances do they need to
highlight.

Thanks!
Jugglertwo

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi

Well I never trust Excel to do the intelligent thing consistently and I
would always mark the total range of data I wanted to Sort first, then
choose Data>Sort etc. to choose whether there are headers or not, which
columns to Sort by, and which Order.

This may be a bit slower, but it sure beats having a set of screwed up data.

Regards

Roger Govier