Putting An Excel Spreadsheet In Alphabetical Order

[andy-hughes]

I am currently listing a load of song titles on an Excel spreadsheet.

For some reason, it has issues with titles that start with the word 'Don't'.

When I click the A-Z facility, the list comes out more or less alphabetically, but some titles are thrown out of their alphabetical place and appear elsewhere for no reason that I can figure.

I have tried making a new list, but exactly the same thing happens.

Any ideas what's wrong, and how to fix it?

[andy-hughes]

APG - // … click the icon on the left hand side that says 'sort and filter'(looks like a champagne glass with an A & Z.) choose 'custom sort' and the box I was referring to will appear, make sure you choose 'sort on cell values' and it should work. //

Thanks - but I have already done that, and it doesn't work.

[THECORBYLOON]

Can you upload an image of your sorted list including an error?

[andy-hughes]

Corby - thanks for the compliment, assuming I am that tech savvy, but sadly no, I wouldn't know where to start!

[AuntPollyGrey]

watch the whole thing through or skip to 0.29 to show you how to use custom sort.
https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/sort-data-in-a-range-or-table-62d0b95d-2a90-4610-a6ae-2e545c4a4654

[Gizmonster]

Corby is thinking what I was thinking - is it possible then, just to write part of the list down on here, showing the error so we can see where things go wrong??

[fiction-factory]

It's not a problem I've ever had. Are you definitely highlighting everything? Is it definitely a text field and was it entered as text? Is there a second sort level?
Are there gaps between any lines?
An example of 5 rows unsorted and then incorrectly sorted would help

[Maydup]

I feel sure its a formatting issue.

Can you click on one of cells that contains one of the titles that's in the wrong place please. right click, go to format or to format on the ribbon, and tell us what it says.

[Maydup]

Another thought, when you tried to make a new list did you copy and paste the data? If so try it once more using copy and paste but make sure you select .....
paste values.

Just in case there is anything buried behind the cells to throw things out.

[andy-hughes]

Maydup - // Another thought, when you tried to make a new list did you copy and paste the data? If so try it once more using copy and paste but make sure you select .....
paste values. //

No, I actually constructed a new spreadsheet from scratch, and still encounter the same problems.

[andy-hughes]

Sorted it!

When I did as suggested and right-clicked, I found the 'locked' button ticked.

I unticked it, re-sorted, and it's as it should be.

Thanks everyone for your patience and assistance - much appreciated.

[Maydup]

Hoorah! odd how it occured in the new document too, but its solved and thats all that matters.

[andy-hughes]

Maydup - // Hoorah! odd how it occured in the new document too, but its solved and thats all that matters. //

Thanks - my vague curiosity about how the issue occured in a new document was rapidly eclipsed by my euphoria at having sorted it out - with some help from my tech friends on here, to whom, thanks again.