Help with sorting!

**couriced** · 10-13-2005, 03:00 PM

Hello,

Is there an easy way to sort a list with varying lengths of data?

We have a column that has data in the cells that are say 4-9 characters in length. What currently happens when we sort is it sorts all the 4 character length entries first, then the 5 character entries, and so on. We would like to sort it so it is alphanumeric based on the characters it contains...regardless of length.

Thanks in advance!

**swatsp0p** · 10-13-2005, 03:33 PM

Shouldn't happen that way, can you give some specific cell contents to evaluate?

If I have the following in a column:

1abc
2ab
b412
1a
'4 (a text entry)
b2135
and sort Ascending, I get:

1a
1abc
2ab
4
b2135
b412

What are you getting?

**couriced** · 10-13-2005, 03:38 PM

Yes, agreed. When I do a quick sample myself...I get the same result as you. User just emailed me their workbook...and it will only sort this way:

BO33
AT283
AT384
AT386
AT645
AT651
DA008
DAA&M
NY321
NY548
NY585
NY950
PH258
PH259
PH261
PH262
PH263
PH264
PH266
PH267
PH268
PH269
PH272
PH560
AT1060
AT1061

I have tried just copying this one column out of the workbook and pasting to its own and formatting it as text to try...it just won't...

**couriced** · 10-13-2005, 04:05 PM

Ok..after playing around with the users file...I have discovered why it won't sort...which opens a new problem. This data was an export from elsewhere. Not obvious at first glance is that these values all have a random number of spaces before them. When I goto the cell and delete the space that precedes the actual data...then resort...that particular cell then falls in place where we want in a sort. Now...how do we delete a random number of spaces before each piece of data. Looks like there's 2-4 of them.