Sorting In excel

Sorting data can prove to be very beneficial when you have a large worksheet and you want to sort the things, say by alphabetical order or you want the values to be sorted in ascending or descending order. Sorting your data will get you covered in these cases. And hence enables you do data analysis in a very efficient way.

Today we will talk about 3 types of sorting namely:

1. Quick Sorting (single column)
2. Multiple Sorting (range of data)
3. Custom Sorting

Quick Sort

To sort a data in a specific column according to alphabetical order or in ascending or descending order (if the data is number) we will use quick sorting.

Suppose we have the following data

Now we want to sort the data into alphabetical order of first names of each player.

To do this follow the steps mentioned below:

Steps:

• Click on the table header of the column you want to sort.

In Our case it is the First name header

• Go to the Data tab found on the ribbon and click on it.
• Under the Sort and filter category click on the button to sort the data in ascending/alphabetical order.

In case you want to sort in descending order click this button.

• Now you’ve sorted your data in alphabetical order of the first names of the player.

You can see the result,

Alphabet C comes first than any another alphabet in our data of first names, hence it is on top. And the rest of the column is also sorted in this fashion.

So now we have our data sorted and we used a single column to sort our data.

Suppose, we have to sort the data within multiple ranges of data according to some column values, for this we will now learn about multiple sorting.

Multiple Sorting

For illustration of multiple sorting let us take an example data set to understand a use case.

Suppose, we have the following data,

And now we want to sort our whole table by the number of orders.

Follow the following steps, to do this:

Steps:

• Select the cell range you want to sort.

• Select the Data tab on the ribbon and then click on Sort command

Under the sort and filter category.

• A Sort dialog box will appear,

Select the column name you want to sort by. In our example we will sort by orders.

• Now choose the sorting order of your choice which you want to implement.

We have selected Largest to Smallest.

Now click on OK.

Now you have your data sorted according to the column you selected to sort by.

You can observe that our data is now sorted by the orders column. The orders have now the largest values on the top of the table and smallest values in the bottom of the table.

In this way you can sort complex information also by selecting a range and applying sorting criterion in the sorting dialog box.

Some power users of Excel may find the sorting options to be a bit lacking according to their work needs. That’s why the next thing which we going to talk about, addresses the issues of power users.

Custom Sorting in Excel

Suppose we have the following data,

Which we sorted a while ago.

But instead of sorting by names we want to sort them by the T-shirt sizes they wear. We want all the names in one place who wears the same size t-shirt to analyze our data more efficiently.

To do this custom sorting operation, follow the following steps:

Steps:

• Select the cell in the column which you want to apply custom sort.

In our example we have selected a cell in the T-Shirt Size field.

• Select the Data tab, then click the Sort command.

• Again, the sort dialog box appears,

We want to sort by T-Shirt Size column. In the order drop down menu click on Custom list.

• Another dialog appears, in the Custom lists dialog under the custom lists make sure NEW LIST is clicked.

Inside the list entries box, give the order of sorting which you’d like.

Now click on the Add button then click on OK.

• Again, in the previous sort dialog box, click on OK.

Voila! Now our data is custom sorted according to our choice.

Notice, all the sizes with small are on top with increasing sizes medium, large and x-large.

So, in this way you can also apply custom sorting to your data for very efficient data analysis using Microsoft Excel.

Hope you have learned a lot from this tutorial.

Good Luck! Analyzing your data.