Create buttons to sort

if youe on the excel sheet and press ALT F11 then you will open the vbeditor
You can then look in the modules though the project expolor and look at the code that does this ...providing that you the project is not behind a password

Hi


Are you using autoshapes from the drawing toolbar to create a button?

View > Toolbars > Drawing

If so you can right click on it and select assign macro. It willl bring up a userform menu and highlighted in black should be the name of the macro your button runs. (what makes it sort). Now you know the name of the assigned macro do the following

Tools > Macro > Macros...

Left click once on the name, so it is highlighted in blue and then click 'step into' from the side menu and you will see a load of code that sorts your rows when the button is clicked. It might look something like the below (depending on the specifics of your macro:

Sub Macro3()
'
' Macro3 Macro
' Macro recorded 02/10/2006
'

'
Columns("B:B").Select
Selection.Sort Key1:=Range("B1"), Order1:=xlAscending, Header:=xlGuess, _
OrderCustom:=1, MatchCase:=False, Orientation:=xlTopToBottom, _
DataOption1:=xlSortNormal
Range("C1").Select
End Sub

This looks complicated (and it is if you write it yourself). But thankfully for the beginner to VBA (Visual Basic for Applications, macros and stuff) you can simply create a macro by recording one.

To create a macro

Tools > Macro > Record new macro...

Here the little userform menu pops up and asks you to name your new macro( no spaces,numbers or symbols as far as i can remember) You will also get the option to assign a shortcut key to your new macro, but since you have a button you dont really need to bother with the rest of the stuff it asks you to do. By clicking OK you start recording so remember it will record everything you do so dont make any mistakes!. So you can select a column or row or whatever you want to do and sort

Data > Sort > Accending/ decending etc

Then when you are done if a toolbar has appeared there should be a button on it that looks like a blue/red square, click it to stop or alternativly go

Tools > Macro > Stop recording

Now that you are done you can select your button, right click and assign your macro to it.

As Stevebriz said if you press Alt and F11, this is a shortcut key to open the VBA Editor. By pressing it you should have openned a new window. Down the left hand side there should be another window called project - vba project. Underneath it should be 3 drop down menus.

1. Vba project(name of your workbook)
2. Microsoft excel objects
3. Modules

if you sheet has usersforms (think the record new macro on screen menu thing ) that the person who created the workbook has made there might be a fourth one called forms. No need to worry now about userforms)

Macros are automatically stored in modules and by openning the drop down menu there should be some e.g. module 1 / module 2 depending on the volume of macros. Double click on the module name and you will open it up. In the middle of the VBAeditor window there should be a white screen with loads of writing (like the example macro above). these are you macros.
Macros are seperated by lines. However if someone has password protected their macros you wont be able to do the above. If you accidently record something you dont want included in the macros you can delete it here

say if you selected the wrong columns you can find the code e.g.

Columns("B:B").Select

and either edit it or delete it completely. However if you delete something your not sure what it does, it might stop your macro from working properly so for a new user it is best to avoid deleting things that dont stand out as obvious. By closing this down you can run your macros again.

Hope it helps