Sorting is a relatively simple exercise, but Excel has some very powerful features that let you sort your data exactly as you want it to be.
How to sort data from an Excel spreadsheet
- In Excel, click inside the cell at the top of the column you want to sort.
- Now, please ensure you’re on the Excel ribbon Home tab and find the Sort and Filter button on far upper right of it.
- Sort choices, users could really sort the text “A to Z” or “Z to A.” These simple options will alphabetically sort the Excel data in either direction, based on the options you select.
- If you sort the data in Excel, the whole row is sorted. Essentially, the column that you select will be the “key” that Excel uses to decide how to sort the data, but each row is a record that should be grouped together.
- You can sort alphabetically or numerically, depending on the data you selected. If your column has numerical values, you can sort from the smallest to the largest quantities, while the text data is sorted by alphabetical order.
- Simply click inside the data column, choose the sort option, and Excel will reorder the data inside the spreadsheet.
How to filter data in excel
If the table or range contains a large number of datasets, it is very difficult to find and extract the exact information or data requested. The Data Filter helps out in this scenario.
Data Filter in Excel: this is a quick way to display only the relevant or specific information that we need and to temporarily hide irrelevant information or data in a table.
To activate the Excel data filter for any data in Excel, select the full data range or table range and click the Filter button on the Data tab in the Excel ribbon.
There have been three types of options for filtering data:
Data Filter Based on Text Values – Used when cells contain TEXT values
- Other than multiple filtering options in text value, AutoFilter criteria do provide sorting options that are suitable for a given column. I.e., I mean. Sort by A to Z, Sort by Z to A, Sort by Color.
Data Filter Based on Numeric Values – Used when cells contain numbers or numeric values.
- Apart from multiple filtering options in Numeric Value, AutoFilter criteria also provide sorting options that are relevant to a given column. I.e., I mean. Sort by Smallest to Largest, Sort by Largest to Smallest, Sort by Color.
Data Filter Based on Date Values – is used when cells have date values
- Other than multiple filtering options in the date value, the AutoFilter criteria also provide the sorting options relevant to the given column. I.e., I mean. Sort from Oldest to Newest, Sort from Newest to Oldest, and Sort from Color.
