Sorting by Dates in a Table

[Susan]

I have a table that has 4 columns in it, the first column
is filled in with all dates (in this format 1/3/04). I am
trying to sort the table by date, oldest to newest. I
selected the column, went to table, sort, sort by date.
It does not make any changes to the table. Any
suggestions??

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It sounds as if you're doing everything right. FWIW, it works perfectly for
me--even recognizing "99" as being earlier than "02," which I wouldn't
necessarily have expected. In my case, Word's default settings for Column 1
were Type: Date and Using: Paragraphs, so it obviously recognized the dates.
Is there any text in your first column other than the dates? BTW, although
it didn't appear to make any difference in my testing, you don't need to
select the column before going to Table | Sort: that dialog allows you to
select the desired column to sort on (by number or by name if you've added a
heading row) and adjusts the sort according to the content of the column.

 

[Susan]

No, there is nothing else in the column, I looked at the
style of text, and even tried retyping the numbers, just
in case, I am at a loss ....

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I think I may have the glimmering of an idea. You and I are both assuming
that Word will recognize 1/3/04 as a date. But ISTR that this is true only
if you have used slashes in your default date format in Control Panel |
Regional Options | Date. If you've used hyphens or some other separator,
Word might not interpret the dates correctly. Just a wild guess and probably
irrelevant, since I just tested using dates with hyphens, and Word sorted
correctly (I guess if you tell Word they're dates, it responds accordingly).
So I guess we're no forrader. Sorry!

 

[Susan]

Thanks, I thought of that too and double checked with Word
help, it does recognize the slashes. I might do a find
and replace to hyphens just to rule it out though. Thanks
again.

Susan