Excel alphabatizing

DamienH

Hey, This is a question that i'm posting up here for my mother. Okay at work she has like a couple of hundered odd names and address into 7 different columns. Each name has a corresponding adrress e.g.
O' Connel | Mary |18 Calik Rd.| Cork

Surname | First Name | Address 1 | Address 2

She wants to aplhabatize the surnames into a list but the persons address must follow the surname. Is there anyway to do this at all? Or does she just have to type the list again,
Sorry it's not the easiest thing to explain,
Thanks,
Damien

Dac51

If the names and addresses are already in separate columns then a simple sort by the column containing the surnames will do.

If the name and address however are in a single cell in each row then she will have to use the Text to Columns feature using spaces to separate the columns. Unfortunately I don't have Excel here at home so I can't explain it in detail, but it is easy enough to follow. Text to Columns simply separates text in a cell into different columns. The user must define at what point the text is separated, i.e. spaces, commas.

Hope this helps,

Dac.

Dun

Since you said it is in different columns, then sorting by column will work (Click in the first data cell, click Data -> Sort). It's pretty intelligent about sorting. And remember, that if a balls-up is made, there's always the Undo button! Best to practice on a copy of the file first if it's REALLY important. Just make sure she deletes the copy so some eejit doesn't start changing it instead of the real file.

DamienH

thanks for all the help lads