Sorting a field by last name

[chum]

I have a table in which the name field contains the complete name. For example, "Jane and Dr. Thomas Smith" is in one cell. Is there a way of sorting this field by last name?

 

[Ruddles]

The simplest way would be to extract the last name into a 'helper' column and sort on that.

If the name is in column A starting from A1, place this in B1:-

=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND("*",SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","*",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","")))))

then copy down as far as the data extends.

Then sort columns A:B using column B as the sort key.