How do I sort based upon values in another column?

**Huuuze** · 10-26-2010, 10:09 AM

I have columns A thru L filled with data and column N contains a sorted list. The values in column N match those in A, however, the sort order is different.

With that being said, I'd like to sort column A (and it's corresponding data in columns B-L) based upon the sort order seen in column N. Any idea how to do that?

PS: I'm using Mac Office 2008.

**6StringJazzer** · 10-26-2010, 10:18 AM

Are the items in column N truly sorted? Just select columns A-L then sort them by the content of column A the same way you sorted N.

If column N is just in some arbitrary order that you can't recreate with a sort, then you need to mirror columns B-L using VLOOKUP with column N as the search value.

**Huuuze** · 10-26-2010, 10:33 AM

Column A is list of basketball players and they're sorted based upon their output from 2010. Column N is sorted based upon their projected output for 2011.

How would I sort Column A to match the sort order found in Column N? What is the syntax?

**6StringJazzer** · 10-26-2010, 03:09 PM

If you have headers in your data on row 1, put the following formula in O2:

=VLOOKUP($N2,A:L,COLUMN()-COLUMN($O$1)+2,FALSE)

This will take the player's name in column N, find it in column A, then return the corresponding value in column B. If you fill this formula to the right to column Z, and down for as many rows of data you have, you will now have in columns O-Z all the values from columns A-L that correspond to the players in column N.

If that doesn't seem to be what you want, attach your workbook and we'll have a look.