Sort Ascending a date

**whatsmyname** · 06-18-2010, 04:50 PM

Hello,

I have a little bit of a problem. I am trying to sort ascendingly my dates in a colum.

The way my dates are typed in is like this: 1/1/2001

When I sort they do sort, but I the only sort by the first number. I need them to sort completly. Meaning: 1/1/2001
2/2/2002

Not: 1/2/2001
2/1/2000

The 2/1/2000 needs to be first because the date is earlier.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

**shg** · 06-18-2010, 04:52 PM

Your dates are stored as text. To verify, change the cell format to General, and if it doesn't change to a number, it's text.

Select the column, and do Data > Text to columns, Finish.

**whatsmyname** · 06-18-2010, 06:06 PM

Thank you so much. I'm going to have to study it more.

**Palmetto** · 06-19-2010, 07:42 PM

Here is a quick tip to tell if the "numbers" you see are real numbers or text that appear as numbers.
The default horizontal alignment is General and this should NEVER be changed (on raw data sheets).

Using the default horizontal alignment, all text is automatically left aligned and all numbers are automatically right aligned. You may need to widen a column to see the effect of the alignment. If you see numbers that are not right aligned, either the horizontal alignment has been changed or the numbers are text.

One method of converting text "numbers" to real numbers is to use the PasteSpecial method to add zero to the cells. In a blank cell, enter the value of zero. Copy the "zero" cell and select all of the target cells and use Paste Special > Add