09-02-2012, 02:57 PM
Sort & Filter in Excel
You can sort your data in Excel in descending and ascending order. You can filter your data If you only want to display records that meet certain criteria.
Sort
If you only want to sort on one column, execute the following easy steps.
1. Open the accompanied Excel file, and click any cell in the column you want to sort.
2. To sort in ascending order, click on the Data tab and then click AZ.
Result:
Note: in a similar way, you can sort in descending order by clicking on ZA.
If you want to sort on several criteria at once, execute the following steps.
3. Click on the Data tab and then click Sort.
The Sort dialog box appears. To sort data by last name first, select Last Name from the first drop-down list. You can leave the other drop-down lists (we sort on values and we sort in ascending order).
Second, we want to sort the records by sales.
4. Click on Add Level and select Sales from the first drop-down list. You can leave the other drop-down lists again
5. Click on OK.
Result. Records are sorted by last name first and sales second.
Filter
To filter your data in Excel, execute the following easy steps.
1. Click any single cell inside the data set.
2. Click on the Data tab and then click Filter.
Arrows in the column headers appear.
3. Now for example, click on the arrow next to Country.
4. Click on Select All, to clear all the checkboxes. Next, click the checkbox next to USA.
5. Click on OK.
Result. Excel only displays the sales in the USA.
6. You can go one step further. To display the sales in the USA in a specific quarter, click on the arrow next to Quarter and select a quarter.
7. To remove the arrows (which will remove the filter as well), click on Filter from the Data tab again.
That was it. We hope you found this information about sorting and filtering data in Excel useful.