If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Problems when doing DataSort
Hi when sorting thousands of rows by column A (With
numbers in it), Quite a few entries end up out of order. This is alarming :/ Anyone know what's up with that? All I want is to sort numerically ascending column A. I end up having few (Hard to track down) numbers out of order! |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Problems when doing DataSort
They are probably not what you think they are. If you can find a couple like
this, then assuming they are in say Col A and you can see normally sorted data in cells A1:A20 and a funny one in A21 and then normal after that, in say B1 put =ISTEXT(A1) and copy down. Pound to a penny your TRUE and FALSES line up with the funny looking sort. This means that you are probably working with numbers, but some of them are in reality text, ie they may have leading or trailing spaces, or the cell may just have been formatted as text before the data went in. If this is what you are seeing, then copy an empty cell, select all the numbers and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This should coerce the data back to numeric and you can now re-sort. If this doesn't fix it, then you may have garbage in your data in the fomr of MTML characters, especially if thsi s a data dump from a web page. If thsi is the case then I would take a look at Dave McRitchies TRIMALL macro which will fix this for you nicely:- http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "WCyrek" wrote in message ... Hi when sorting thousands of rows by column A (With numbers in it), Quite a few entries end up out of order. This is alarming :/ Anyone know what's up with that? All I want is to sort numerically ascending column A. I end up having few (Hard to track down) numbers out of order! --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Problems when doing DataSort
Thank you I shall give it a try. I reformmated my A column
as numbers before but it may be the case some cells may have locked formating :/ I will look into your solution extensively! -----Original Message----- They are probably not what you think they are. If you can find a couple like this, then assuming they are in say Col A and you can see normally sorted data in cells A1:A20 and a funny one in A21 and then normal after that, in say B1 put =ISTEXT(A1) and copy down. Pound to a penny your TRUE and FALSES line up with the funny looking sort. This means that you are probably working with numbers, but some of them are in reality text, ie they may have leading or trailing spaces, or the cell may just have been formatted as text before the data went in. If this is what you are seeing, then copy an empty cell, select all the numbers and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This should coerce the data back to numeric and you can now re-sort. If this doesn't fix it, then you may have garbage in your data in the fomr of MTML characters, especially if thsi s a data dump from a web page. If thsi is the case then I would take a look at Dave McRitchies TRIMALL macro which will fix this for you nicely:- http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ "WCyrek" wrote in message ... Hi when sorting thousands of rows by column A (With numbers in it), Quite a few entries end up out of order. This is alarming :/ Anyone know what's up with that? All I want is to sort numerically ascending column A. I end up having few (Hard to track down) numbers out of order! --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 . |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Problems when doing DataSort
Ok I verified most columns are False (Ie numbers) But some
are infact True. Worst yet Even thou I unloacked all the columns (Some being locked) I was still unable to apply uniform standard :/ I dont think there is any hidde html in there. If there was I should see it in the formula window right? SO why cant I apply uniform standard to the column? -----Original Message----- They are probably not what you think they are. If you can find a couple like this, then assuming they are in say Col A and you can see normally sorted data in cells A1:A20 and a funny one in A21 and then normal after that, in say B1 put =ISTEXT(A1) and copy down. Pound to a penny your TRUE and FALSES line up with the funny looking sort. This means that you are probably working with numbers, but some of them are in reality text, ie they may have leading or trailing spaces, or the cell may just have been formatted as text before the data went in. If this is what you are seeing, then copy an empty cell, select all the numbers and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This should coerce the data back to numeric and you can now re-sort. If this doesn't fix it, then you may have garbage in your data in the fomr of MTML characters, especially if thsi s a data dump from a web page. If thsi is the case then I would take a look at Dave McRitchies TRIMALL macro which will fix this for you nicely:- http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ "WCyrek" wrote in message ... Hi when sorting thousands of rows by column A (With numbers in it), Quite a few entries end up out of order. This is alarming :/ Anyone know what's up with that? All I want is to sort numerically ascending column A. I end up having few (Hard to track down) numbers out of order! --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 . |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Problems when doing DataSort
Formatting doesn't work that way. Once a cell has been formatted as either
numeric or text and then data entered, if you want to change it around, you need to change the format to what you want it to be and then edit the cell by either double clicking into it and hitting enter, or by pressing F2 then enter. As long as somehow you effect a change to that cell ( Change does not mean the data has to change - Confused yet :- ) it will then accept the new format. The usual fix for that is to do as I suggested:- Copy an empty cell, select all your data and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This effectively adds nothing or 0 to the value in the cell, which although it hasn't changed your data, the cell has gone through a change in that an action has been performed on it. The addition of the 0 tells Excel that you actually want to treat that data as a real number, and so it converts it to a numeric value. -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- wrote in message ... Ok I verified most columns are False (Ie numbers) But some are infact True. Worst yet Even thou I unloacked all the columns (Some being locked) I was still unable to apply uniform standard :/ I dont think there is any hidde html in there. If there was I should see it in the formula window right? SO why cant I apply uniform standard to the column? -----Original Message----- They are probably not what you think they are. If you can find a couple like this, then assuming they are in say Col A and you can see normally sorted data in cells A1:A20 and a funny one in A21 and then normal after that, in say B1 put =ISTEXT(A1) and copy down. Pound to a penny your TRUE and FALSES line up with the funny looking sort. This means that you are probably working with numbers, but some of them are in reality text, ie they may have leading or trailing spaces, or the cell may just have been formatted as text before the data went in. If this is what you are seeing, then copy an empty cell, select all the numbers and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This should coerce the data back to numeric and you can now re-sort. If this doesn't fix it, then you may have garbage in your data in the fomr of MTML characters, especially if thsi s a data dump from a web page. If thsi is the case then I would take a look at Dave McRitchies TRIMALL macro which will fix this for you nicely:- http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ "WCyrek" wrote in message ... Hi when sorting thousands of rows by column A (With numbers in it), Quite a few entries end up out of order. This is alarming :/ Anyone know what's up with that? All I want is to sort numerically ascending column A. I end up having few (Hard to track down) numbers out of order! --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 . --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Problems when doing DataSort
Thank you, that cleared everything up. And I learned
something in the process -----Original Message----- Formatting doesn't work that way. Once a cell has been formatted as either numeric or text and then data entered, if you want to change it around, you need to change the format to what you want it to be and then edit the cell by either double clicking into it and hitting enter, or by pressing F2 then enter. As long as somehow you effect a change to that cell ( Change does not mean the data has to change - Confused yet :- ) it will then accept the new format. The usual fix for that is to do as I suggested:- Copy an empty cell, select all your data and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This effectively adds nothing or 0 to the value in the cell, which although it hasn't changed your data, the cell has gone through a change in that an action has been performed on it. The addition of the 0 tells Excel that you actually want to treat that data as a real number, and so it converts it to a numeric value. -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ wrote in message ... Ok I verified most columns are False (Ie numbers) But some are infact True. Worst yet Even thou I unloacked all the columns (Some being locked) I was still unable to apply uniform standard :/ I dont think there is any hidde html in there. If there was I should see it in the formula window right? SO why cant I apply uniform standard to the column? -----Original Message----- They are probably not what you think they are. If you can find a couple like this, then assuming they are in say Col A and you can see normally sorted data in cells A1:A20 and a funny one in A21 and then normal after that, in say B1 put =ISTEXT(A1) and copy down. Pound to a penny your TRUE and FALSES line up with the funny looking sort. This means that you are probably working with numbers, but some of them are in reality text, ie they may have leading or trailing spaces, or the cell may just have been formatted as text before the data went in. If this is what you are seeing, then copy an empty cell, select all the numbers and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This should coerce the data back to numeric and you can now re-sort. If this doesn't fix it, then you may have garbage in your data in the fomr of MTML characters, especially if thsi s a data dump from a web page. If thsi is the case then I would take a look at Dave McRitchies TRIMALL macro which will fix this for you nicely:- http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ------------------------------------------------------- --- ------------------ It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ------------------------------------------------------- --- ------------------ "WCyrek" wrote in message ... Hi when sorting thousands of rows by column A (With numbers in it), Quite a few entries end up out of order. This is alarming :/ Anyone know what's up with that? All I want is to sort numerically ascending column A. I end up having few (Hard to track down) numbers out of order! --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 . --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 . |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Problems when doing DataSort
See - Who said learning wasn't fun :-)
Glad it worked, and do appreciate the feedback - Thank You. -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "WCyrek" wrote in message ... Thank you, that cleared everything up. And I learned something in the process -----Original Message----- Formatting doesn't work that way. Once a cell has been formatted as either numeric or text and then data entered, if you want to change it around, you need to change the format to what you want it to be and then edit the cell by either double clicking into it and hitting enter, or by pressing F2 then enter. As long as somehow you effect a change to that cell ( Change does not mean the data has to change - Confused yet :- ) it will then accept the new format. The usual fix for that is to do as I suggested:- Copy an empty cell, select all your data and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This effectively adds nothing or 0 to the value in the cell, which although it hasn't changed your data, the cell has gone through a change in that an action has been performed on it. The addition of the 0 tells Excel that you actually want to treat that data as a real number, and so it converts it to a numeric value. -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ wrote in message ... Ok I verified most columns are False (Ie numbers) But some are infact True. Worst yet Even thou I unloacked all the columns (Some being locked) I was still unable to apply uniform standard :/ I dont think there is any hidde html in there. If there was I should see it in the formula window right? SO why cant I apply uniform standard to the column? -----Original Message----- They are probably not what you think they are. If you can find a couple like this, then assuming they are in say Col A and you can see normally sorted data in cells A1:A20 and a funny one in A21 and then normal after that, in say B1 put =ISTEXT(A1) and copy down. Pound to a penny your TRUE and FALSES line up with the funny looking sort. This means that you are probably working with numbers, but some of them are in reality text, ie they may have leading or trailing spaces, or the cell may just have been formatted as text before the data went in. If this is what you are seeing, then copy an empty cell, select all the numbers and do Edit / Paste Special / Add. This should coerce the data back to numeric and you can now re-sort. If this doesn't fix it, then you may have garbage in your data in the fomr of MTML characters, especially if thsi s a data dump from a web page. If thsi is the case then I would take a look at Dave McRitchies TRIMALL macro which will fix this for you nicely:- http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall -- Regards Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 00/02/03 ------------------------------------------------------- --- ------------------ It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-) ------------------------------------------------------- --- ------------------ "WCyrek" wrote in message ... Hi when sorting thousands of rows by column A (With numbers in it), Quite a few entries end up out of order. This is alarming :/ Anyone know what's up with that? All I want is to sort numerically ascending column A. I end up having few (Hard to track down) numbers out of order! --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 . --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004 . --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.562 / Virus Database: 354 - Release Date: 16/01/2004 |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|