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Archiver > SOUTH-AFRICA > 2004-06 > 1086314328


From: Keith Meintjes <>
Subject: Re: [ZA] Sorting by date order in MSWord and Excel
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2004 21:58:48 -0400


Your problem is likely that you have different date formats in the same
column.

Make a copy!!

Try the following: Select the column, then Format .. Cells and choose Date.

Pick a format like dd/mm/yyyy. You should see a reasonable answer. Sort on
the column. If this works, you are done.

If there are garbage dates, undo all you have done, or go to the original and
make another copy. Select the date column, and choose Data.. Text to Column
(as I recall).

This will break your dates column in three: Day, month, year. (Or however you
had it formatted.) Now, choose sort, and sort on your new year, month, and
day columns. Fix the problems, convert 53 to 1953, etc. Re-sort based on
your corrections.

This may be a long way of saying:

I keep day, month and year in separate columns. To make a date, I have a new
column day&month&year or concatenate(day,"/",month,"/",year).

To get rows in sequence, sort on year, then month, then day.

Keith

Andrew Rodger <> wrote:

If you want to sort by date in both Excel and Word, the easiest way is
to reverse the date, i.e. show it as yyyymmdd, and then simply sort the
column numerically. It is no great task to read dates so written (the
military do it all the time), and in writing them one must simply
remember to zero-fill the subfields, e.g. 4 June 2004 would be
20040604. You can insert points between the subfields (2004.06.04) to
make it easier, at the cost of a slightly wider column.

On Thursday, June 3, 2004, at 11:42 PM, Eileen & Marty Russell wrote:

> Hi
> I am trying to put some lists in date order and I can't get either Word
> or Excel to do it properly, there is probably a trick but I can't find
> any clues in the Help facility or in the book I've got.
>
> Here's what happens, if I type the dates in the style 6 Oct 49 or
> 10/5/56 it works fine. As soon as I put the year in full e.g. 6 Oct
> 1849 or 10/5/1856 it doesn't work any more. This, of course, is
> totally useless for my needs as I must have the century. Can any one
> help me?
>
> Many thanks
> Eileen
> Richards Bay
>
>
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