Sorting a 10x10 Grid in Excel

[Haydn1971]

Thought this would be easy, however...

I have a number of 10x10 grids of data (speed readings) in excel and I want to sort them into numerical order from grid A1 to J10 - any easy ideas without resorting to dragging the ten rows into a single row sorting, then redragging into ten rows again ?

Cheers

 

[DBMark]

Thought this would be easy, however...

I have a number of 10x10 grids of data (speed readings) in excel and I want to sort them into numerical order from grid A1 to J10 - any easy ideas without resorting to dragging the ten rows into a single row sorting, then redragging into ten rows again ?

Cheers

Hope I'm not mis-reading what you mean by 10x10 grid. You highlight all the fields in this block, then choose Data>>Sort You have the option to select Header details (if you've got a title on each column). You then select which column(s) to sort by. You can then press OK and away you go...

Alternatively (if you need to sort by more than 3 columns) use the Sort Ascending or Sort Descending buttons (you'll need to apply this each time) on the toolbar. EDIT - after looking at the spreadsheet, not so sure about this last step. Are you looking for a sort by over 9 different criteria (in different columns?)

 

[downsouth]

been looking at this one too, but alas think our friends at microsoft dont cater for this one

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/268007

This might offer some assistance on the best method to sort more than 3 columns

Hope this helps

Could you not write some form of macro?

 

[DBMark]

Could you not write some form of macro?

Looks like you'll need to either use a macro, or use an add-in.

There is another alternative (assuming you've got Access) but that would be even more cumbersome if you're not used to dealing with databases. Basically you set up a table in Access with the relevant columns, import your data from Excel into the table, then perform a query with all your sort bys included in the Order by clause. Then copy the output back into Excel.
Hope we're not scaring you off the problem!

 

[Haydn1971]

Hope I'm not mis-reading what you mean by 10x10 grid.

Yes you are, sorry... I want to sort the 100 numbers into lowest in A1 and highest in J10 - i.e. so a number in column A moves to another column...

 

[spreadsheetsdirect]

You could do it using the RANK & VLOOKUP formula. I've put an example file on my site http://www.spreadsheetsdirect.com/gridsort/ Once you set it up for one table you should be able to copy it for others.