Sort Values That Look Like Dates

[snapfade]

As an pretty experienced Excel user I am almost embarrassed to post this problem.

I am having a terrible time sorting some stock numbers that look like a date. The first item looks like April 1 and there seems to be no formatting I can apply that will make it sort properly so that it appears in between the other two values.

APR01
ABD01
ARS01

I know I am missing something...or am I?

Thanks!

[FDibbins]

When I copied your data, it changed APR01 to 4/1/2014. Not sure where your data is coming from, but to overcome that, I added ' and then typed it in. You could get the same affect if you formatted your cells to text before entering the data. It should sort fine after that

[snapfade]

I know about adding the apostrophe but that can mess up formulas. And formatting as text does NOT change the sort. I thought text format would do the trick but apparently Excel insists internally that apr01 is a number and sticks it ahead of text.

Any other ideas?

[FDibbins]

Thats why I said to format as text BEFORE you enter your data. If the data is already there, formatting has no affect on the contents

[snapfade]

Um, sorry, I tried that. I would love to have you try it too. I formatted empty cells as text, entered the data, sorted...no joy. Give it a try. This is really frustrating.

[FDibbins]

It sorts just fine for me....
ascending...

	I
4	ABD01
5	APR01
6	ARS01

descending...

	I
4	ARS01
5	APR01
6	ABD01

Upload a sample please?

[RobertMika]

Choose "Sort"(not the ascending /descending one) Option
Continue with current selection...
OK
Theb
Sort Numbers and Numbers Stored as Text separately





(1000...post)

[snapfade]

Aha! I am the lazy type that has the sort buttons on my quick access toolbar and clicking ascending or descending gave improper results. I needed to use the full sort facility to get the prompt that Robert mentioned.

Thanks for the help!

[FDibbins]

Congrats in 1k posts Robert!!!

@ snapfade, happy to help and thanks for the feedback

[snapfade]

Congrats indeed, Robert. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[RobertMika]

Thank you Ford and snapfade!