Alphanumeric Sort

[pooh53175]

I have a list of employees, and we follow The 12 Rules of Filing (Unit-by-Unit. Last name, Frist name, Middle Name). I have an employee whose last name is May. Excel reads it as a month, so therefore it moves that employee to the top of the alphanumeric chain. Meaning, it translates May into 5 (representing the month of May). How do I prevent this? I thought convert number to text, but that did not work.

I imagine it is within the File>Options>Advance or File>Options>Proofing>Autocorrect Options, but I cannot find anything.

 

[6StringJazzer]

I have never heard of this happening (typing text that happens to be the same as a month name and getting converted to a number). I cannot reproduce the situation you are talking about. What format is your data in? Are you importing a txt or csv file into Excel? Is the list created by another application? At what point in the processing chain does the conversion occur?

 

[Fluff]

Check that you are sorting A-Z & not using one of the custom sorts

 

[pooh53175]

I have never heard of this happening (typing text that happens to be the same as a month name and getting converted to a number). I cannot reproduce the situation you are talking about. What format is your data in? Are you importing a txt or csv file into Excel? Is the list created by another application? At what point in the processing chain does the conversion occur?

I've noticed it in both CSV and XLSX files. I thought it was because it started as a CSV, did a Save As XLSX, closed and reopened, but that wasn't the case. Then I did a copy/paste values into a new workbook (not sheet), it it still did it.
For the longest time it was only in PivotTables, but in the last month or two it started doing it in a regular spreadsheet. I tried it creating a table, and it still did it. I also made sure that the column was formatted as text, not general. I use the Sort, instead of Sort A-Z, so I can verify it is truly A-Z not "oldest to Newest" order.

 

[pooh53175]

Check that you are sorting A-Z & not using one of the custom sorts

I always use the "Sort" feature, so I can verify it's "A-Z", not "Oldest to Newest".

 

[Fluff]

If you format the cell as text & then retype May into the cell, do you still get the problem.