Comments not moving when columns are sorted

[Donal P]

I finished going through a pain-staking review where I was capturing notes on
specific cells as comments. When I was done I sorted the columns and after I
had saved and done some other work came back to realize that the comments had
not moved with the cells. Now the comments in the cells have nothing to do
with the columns they're located in.

I'm not hoping to find a way to get back to where I was initially, but how
do I prevent this from happening again? Did I sort incorrectly, or is there
some way to tie a comment to a cell in such a way that it moves with that
cell?

TIA...

 

[Bernard Liengme]

I cannot reproduce this problem. You did use Insert | Comment to add the
comments. Do you see a red triangle in top right corner of the cells with
comments
best wishes

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Donal,

The most likely thing is that the cells with the comments didn't get sorted. The most
likely reason for that is that they didn't get selected. The most likely reason for that is
that there won't nothing in them (except the comments, but they don't count). Sorting isn't
for the uninitiated in Excel, though it has tried to make it easy. Unfortunately, the
occasional result is the "sort of disaster," by which you've been visited. If you used the
quick sort button on the toolbar, and your comments cells were empty, this would happen. If
there had been something in the heading cell for the comments, it would have sorted
properly. There are many T's and C's for sorting in Excel, unless you do it the long and
safe way (Select the entire table, and use Data - Sort).

There's a short writeup on sorting in "Sorting in Excel" at
http://www.smokeylake.com/excel/excel_truths.htm.
--
Regards from Virginia Beach,

Earl Kiosterud
www.smokeylake.com

Note: Top-posting has been the norm here.
Some folks prefer bottom-posting.
But if you bottom-post to a reply that's
already top-posted, the thread gets messy.
When in Rome...

 

[Donal P]

Yes, the cells all had the red triangle in the top right corner; I always use
the keyboard shortcuts to create my comments (alt-i | m). In the past I don't
think I'd ever looked to see if the comments had moved with the cells so I'm
not sure if this is an isolated incident or if I'm only now noticing it.

Thanks for responding!

D

 

[Donal P]

Well, I actually did it the long way - I selected the range manually (to
avoid sorting column or row headers), and all cells had numeric values
between 1 and 5 in them. In fact, I don't think I've ever used the quick
sort button you reference - some innate distrust of the hidden machinations
of Uncle Bill, perhaps...

Thanks for your response!

D