Date Sorting Question

[Paul Axelrod]

I have inherited a speadsheet containing about 12 thousand records,
one of the fields contains date information. The dates are entered in
a mm/dd/yy format.
The problem is it needs to be sorted by month, then year and then day.
Is it possible to do this in Excel 97.

Paul

 

[Myrna Larson]

Assuming the dates are in column A, set up a "helper" column on the right, say K. In K1 put this
formula and copy down as far as necessary:

=TEXT(A1,"MMYYYYDD")

Change the reference appropriately.

Sort on this helper column. Be sure the helper column is immediately to the right of the last
column of "real" data so the data rows will be sorted with it. BTW, you can hide this column if
you wish, but then you can't select a cell there and click the Sort button.

 

[Paul Axelrod]

Thank you. Hard tasks are easy when you know how.