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TessaD - 31 Jul 2007 16:16 GMT

I'm using Excel 2000. have created a document, uploaded it to google docs
and spreadsheets, exported it as a doc, converted it to a spreadsheet (excel)
and uploaded it again to google docs. It's not a complicated file - no
calculations or anything, just a simple log to enable us to collaborate on
change requests and website faults. New requests are assigned a number
incrementally one higher than the previous. So we need to sort on the Log
number column to see what the last logged number was. However, it sorts most
of the spreadsheet and leaves the same 5 rows unsorted at the end.

I exported it back to excel and have been working on it locally to see if I
can make it work, to no avail.

Can anywone shed any light on this as it's getting very frustrating.

Many thanks

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Pete_UK - 31 Jul 2007 16:32 GMT

Highlight all the data including any headers, then Data | Sort -
choose the sort key and click OK. If you still have problems then
maybe the data in those five rows is not what it appears to be (eg it
may be text that looks like a number) - correct as necessary.

Hope this helps.

Pete

> I'm using Excel 2000. have created a document, uploaded it to google docs
> and spreadsheets, exported it as a doc, converted it to a spreadsheet (excel)
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>
> Many thanks

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TessaD - 01 Aug 2007 09:38 GMT

Hi Pete

Thanks for your tip. I had already done that, and still had no joy. I
found this in the Excel help:
-------------------------------------------
Check that numbers are in a numeric format If Excel sorts a cell that
contains a value out of order, the cell might be formatted as text and not as
a number. For example, negative numbers from some accounting systems become
text when the accounting data is imported into Excel. To apply the correct
formatting, click the cell, click Cells on the Format menu, and then click
the Number tab. If the cell is formatted as text, click a numeric format in
the Category list. After you change the format, you must re-enter the value
in the cell by double-clicking the cell and then pressing ENTER.

If a range of cells has been formatted as text and is sorted incorrectly,
apply a numeric format to the values, and then convert the text to numbers by
using the Paste Special command (Edit menu). In a blank cell, enter the
number 1. Copy the cell that contains the number 1. Select the cells for
which you changed the format. On the Edit menu, click Paste Special. Then
under Operation, click Multiply.
----------------------------

After I'd done the "multiply by 1" thing, and it still didn't work, I then
went in and CLEARED the data in the cells that weren't sorting, clicked on
another cell, and then went back and manually re-entered the value in the
cell.

When I tried sorting again, VOILA! it worked!

Again, thanks for your post Pete, it set me on the right track.

Cheers

Tessa

> Highlight all the data including any headers, then Data | Sort -
> choose the sort key and click OK. If you still have problems then
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
> >
> > Many thanks

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Pete_UK - 01 Aug 2007 10:48 GMT

Thanks for feeding back, Tessa - glad you got it working.

Pete

> Hi Pete
>
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>
> - Show quoted text -

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