Sort worksheet data

- [Instructor] When you enter data into a worksheet, you usually enter it in the order it was received. If you'd like to rearrange the data, you can do so by sorting. I'll demonstrate several techniques to sort data in this movie. My sample file is the sort workbook, and you can find that in the chapter four folder of the exercise files collection. In this workbook I have a set of monthly revenue data for the years 2017, and if I scroll down you can see that it goes all the way through 2018.

The year and month are both represented as numbers and revenue as currency values. I'm using month as a number because sorting by month name can be tricky, and I cover how to sort those values elsewhere in this course. Let's say that I want to sort the revenue from highest value to lowest value. To do that I can click any cell in the revenue column, which is in column C, and then on the home tab of the ribbon go to the far right end, and there is the sort and filter button.

I'll click that, and here I see I can either sort smallest to largest, largest to smallest, or by creating a custom sort. I want to see the largest values on top, so I will click sort largest to smallest. When I do, you see that Excel changes the enter data list, not just the revenue column, by sorting it into descending order, highest values on top, lowest values on the bottom. If I want to undo that sort, then I can press Command + Z, and if I want to redo it, I can press Command + Y.

Now let's say that I have my worksheet in the position where I can't undo anything to get the sort level that I want, and what I want to do is to sort by year and by month to get back to my original data. To do that I need to create a multilevel sort. So I will go once again on the home tab, click sort and filter, and then click custom sort. Doing so displays the sort dialogue box, and you see here that I already have one sort applies, and that shows you that it's the revenue column, sorting by values, and from largest to smallest.

If I wanted to delete that sort, then I could select that sort and click the minus button, and it would be deleted. Note that it did not undo the sort in the workbook, it just got rid of the sorting level. If I want to add a sort level, I can click the plus sign or add level button here, and I have sort by, and then I need to select my column. I want to sort by year and then by month, and both in ascending order.

So I will sort by, and then for the column I'll say year, and values, smallest to largest. Good. Now I want to create a secondary sort model. So I'll click the add level again. All right, so I have sort by, then by. We'll make it by month, and once again I want to go smallest to largest. With all that in place I'll click okay, and my data is sorted into what happens to be its original order.

Sorting is an incredibly powerful technique. You can see your data in all kinds of orders and learn new information when you do.