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Sort function greyed out

  1. #1
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    Sort function greyed out

    Hi Guys
    I have an excel spreadsheet. When i click to select the whole column i cannot click sort. I have searched this out in a few places and seen similiar problems but my problems seems to be a little different to everyone elses as far as i can see. The data is not grouped or protected so i cant see the fault.
    The file was created with excel 2010 and somehow got saved as 2003 along the way. It worked perfectly in this version but was extremely slow. The other problem was it would always save as 73mb even if there were a few records in it.
    So i converted it back to 2010 version and this is where my problem is now

    I cannot upload the file as its 1.63 mb now but if anyone wants to view it i have a copy available at the link below
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42101780/ict1204.xlsm

    Thanks in advance for your help.

    Malcolm

  2. #2
    Forum Expert Paul's Avatar
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    Re: Sort function greyed out

    Hi Lochdara,

    The sort issue is likely happening because you're data is part of a Table. When you select an entire column, you're actually selecting the table and all of the cells unrelated to that table. If you convert the table to a range, you can sort the entire column. As a table, though, if you click the Drop-down in the column header (row 1), you should see the option to Sort (A-Z, Z-A).

    Also, I opened your workbook and right-clicked the sheet tab with your table. I created a copy of it in a new workbook and saved that file. The new file is 33.6KB instead of 1.63MB. I tried removing all extra rows, conditional formatting, modules, sheets, etc. but nothing would get the file size down to what it should be. The older versions definitely contain bloated information, and by going back and forth between versions it has probably saved a lot of unnecessary information.

  3. #3
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    Re: Sort function greyed out

    Thanks for that.
    I'll check this out in the morning with the other users. There is quite a lot going on between filters and formatting. This little spread sheet cut our production delivery time from 30 days to 9 days,so i have to be careful what i do.

    I;ll leave some feedback if this works incase another user has a similiar problem.

  4. #4
    Forum Expert Paul's Avatar
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    Re: Sort function greyed out

    You're welcome, and I hope it works. So you know, even when the data is in a standard range of columns and rows (not part of a table) you can filter, sort and do most (if not all) of the same functionality. Tables just make data sets easier to lay out, format (like banded rows - which can be done normally using conditional formatting), etc.

  5. #5
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    Re: Sort function greyed out

    I had a similar problem with [Group] appearing after sharing files via email. The error would copy to other files and I abandoned it for 6 months. I wanted the data and gave it another try by goggling this forum and found advice about [Group] and deleting sheets. I can't find the post again after I joined in order to thank them, but it helped me. I deleted my apparently "blank" sheets and it un-grayed the sort. Thanks!

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