Sort Mixed Info in Excel

[Misha]

Hi All: I'm trying to sort mixed info in excel. Does anyone know a formula for this? Below is a sample of what I'm trying to sort. Thanks!

100030

117A

2304A

2607AA

5037A

8104A

8163A

8400A

8458A

8873B

8947A

9242A

9578A

A

B

C

[Ken Puls]

What are you trying to sort it by? I.e. what order would you expect the above to be sorted into?

[Misha]

Hi Ken: I'm trying to sort by number. So, my column should look like this:

117A
2304A
2607AA
5037A
8104A
8163A
8400A
100030
A
B
C

[Ken Puls]

Curious... why a formula? It seems to be sorting fine using the built in sort commands from the ribbon...

[Misha]

I guess the prob is that I don't want the numbers with letters attached sorted at the bottom. So, if there is a 1655 I would like 1655-A to follow. These are exhibits for a trial so I also can't pad them with 0000's.

4013

4014

5050

8536

1655-A

1657-A

1657-B

1659-C

1704-A

1712-A

1715-A

1720-A

1726-A

1732-A

1733-A

1851-A

1917-A

1958-A

1958-A

1979-A

2214-A

238-A

238-C

243-A

243-B

2501-DA

2501-DB

2501-LA

2501-NA

2502-2

2605-A

2607-B

2607-C

2607-D

2607-E

2607-F

2607-G

2607-H

2607-J

3000-S

3001-S

3001-S

3002-S

3003-S

3004-S

3005-S

3006-S

3007-S

3008-S

3009-S

3010-S

3011-S

3012-S

3013-S

314-A

3510-3

3516-3

461-A

586-A

586-B

600-A

719-B

720-A

775-A

780-A

781-A

8529-A

8529-B

8529-C

905-A

919-A

[Ken Puls]

Ah, okay, I get what you mean.

I'm assuming that there are no mathematical calculations that are ever done off this column, correct? If you convert them to text, then they will sort exactly as you're after.

To do that, you're going to need to select all the cells, then go to Format Cells-->Number-->Text

The rub is that it still won't work properly until you re-commit any "numbers" to the cell so that Excel can reformat them as text properly. To do that, you pretty much just need to go to the cell, press F2, then press Enter.

If you have a lot of them, then you can do it with a macro:

Sub RePaste()
Dim cl as Range

For each cl in Selection
cl.value = cl.text
Next cl

End Sub

You still need to set the range as text first, then copy that into a standard module (see the steps in my signature), select the cells in question, and run it.

[Misha]

Correct no mathematical calculations performed. So, I was reformatting the cells using F2 and enter and I noticed the green dash does not appear in the cells that have a number and letter (ie 1655-A). Any thoughts on why?

[Ken Puls]

Yep.

The green mark is Excel's way of telling you that the cell format in inconsistent with the others. It's because you've forced it to text rather than it being implicitly converted. It's nothing to worry about.