To alphabetize in Excel, highlight a cell in the column you want to sort by. Here's what our Harry Potter list now looks like, organized by last name in alphabetical order: Click 'OK.'Ĭlick 'OK,' in your Sort settings window, and you should see your list successfully sorted according to your desired criteria. This will change the options in the 'Order' dropdown bar so that you can sort from 'Smallest to Largest' or 'Largest to Smallest.' 7. To do that, you'll select this column in the leftmost 'Columns' dropdown menu. If your spreadsheet includes a column of numbers, rather than letter-based values, you can also sort your sheet by these numbers. We'll talk more about how and why you might sort by custom list in a few minutes. While you can create your own custom list, there are a few preset lists you can sort your data by right away. But you can also sort from Z to A, as well as by a custom list. In the third section of your Sort settings' window, you'll see a dropdown bar called 'Order.' Click it to select how you'd like to order your spreadsheet.īy default, your Sort settings window will suggest sorting alphabetically (which we'll show you shortcuts for in the next process below). Choose how you'd like to order your sheet. These options include cell color, font color, or any icon included in the cell. In the middle column of your Sort settings window, you'll see a dropdown menu called 'Sort On.' Click it, and you can choose to sort your sheet by different characteristics of each cell in the column/row you're sorting by. You don't just have to sort by the value of each cell. This sorting system doesn't quite make sense for our example, so we'll stick with sorting by the 'Last Name' column. If you'd rather sort by a specific row, rather than a column, click 'Options' on the bottom of the window and select 'Sort left to right.' Once you do this, the Sort settings window will reset and ask you to choose the specific 'Row' you'd like to sort by in the leftmost dropdown (where it currently says 'Column'). If sorting by row, click 'Options' and select 'Sort left to right.' If you're sorting by a specific column, click 'Column' - the leftmost dropdown menu, shown below - and select the column whose values you want to be your sorting criteria. This is where you can configure what you'd like sorted and how you'd like to sort it. When you hit the 'Sort' button, shown above, a window of settings will appear. If sorting by column, select the column you want to order your sheet by. The icon has an 'A-Z' graphic on it, as you can see below, but you'll be able to sort in more ways than just alphabetically.ģ. This tab will expand a new set of options beneath it, where you can select the 'Sort' button. Once all the data you want to sort is highlighted, select the 'Data' tab along the top navigation bar (you can see this button on the top-right of the screenshot in the first step, above).

Navigate to 'Data' along the top and select 'Sort.' But the first name and house of each person needs to go with each last name that gets sorted, or each column will become mismatched when we finish sorting.Ģ.

In the screenshot below, we're going to sort this sheet by the last name of Harry Potter characters. To sort a range of cells in Excel, first click and drag your cursor across your spreadsheet to highlight all of the cells you want to sort - even those rows and columns whose values you're not actually sorting by.įor example, if you want to sort column A, but there's data associated with column A in columns B and C, it's important to highlight all three columns to ensure the values in Columns B and C move along with the cells you're sorting in Column A. Highlight the rows and/or columns you want sorted. But don't worry - while the location of certain buttons might be different, the icons and selections you have to make are the same across most earlier versions of Excel.

Choose how you'd like to order your sheet.įor this first set of instructions, we'll be using Microsoft Excel 2017 for Mac.

If sorting by row, click 'Options' and select 'Sort left to right.'.

If sorting by column, select the column you want to order your sheet by.

Navigate to 'Data' along the top and select 'Sort.'.

Highlight the rows and/or columns you want sorted.

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