Refrain from sorting top three header rows?

[cptaixel]

I've been struggling to find thie effective answer via google and a search here. I have three rows of header information. How do I prevent a sort from including those headers rows?

Thanks!

[shg]

Don't include them in the selection when you sort.

[cptaixel]

Ahh, makes sense. I usually sort and "expand the selection" for convenience. I guess a more appropriate question would be...is there a way to lock them from sorting, even if selected (via expand the selection)?

[shg]

No .

[cptaixel]

I've never sorted this way before, and I've having some trouble. I'm excluding the top three header rows...highlighting everything I want to sort, but it only sorts by column A. How do I choose the column I wish to sort by, please?

***Edit Never mind..found it by right clicking over my desired column.

**Edit again...no, on second glance, this did not sort by the column I rightclick-sorted on...This is nuts, it's gotta be something simple I'm over looking...how to sort by column within a highlighted selection?

[cptaixel]

It seems cumbersome to drag and select the entire worksheet except for the top three rows in order to get a sort, especially if it's thousands of rows. Excel seems to be more intuitive than this. I've tried highlighting all, and cntrl+click to unselect, but that doesn't seem to unhighlight the header rows.

[shg]

Select the leftmost, topmost cell of the (single) header row. Press and hold the Ctrl and Shift keys, and press Right then Down.

Bringing up the sort dialog allows you to select the columns you want to sort by name in the header row.

If you want to use Excel as it is designed to work, leave a blank row between the immediate header row and the additional rows above. Then select any cell in the table and press Ctrl+A to select the entire table. If the header row is distinguished by font or formatting, Excel will probably guess correctly that the data has headers.