Sorting Column that has formula

bisel

Board Regular
Joined
Jan 4, 2010
Messages
223
Office Version
  1. 365
Platform
  1. Windows
Greetings,

I have not been able to find an answer using search techniques and hoping some one may have a solution for me ...

I have a worksheet with a couple of columns that have formulas. The formulas' result is to conclude with either a specific cell's value (it will be numeric) or results in a null value ... i.e., cell value = "".

When I try to sort on these columns, if I select A to Z (i.e., low to high), it works fine. When I select Z to A (i.e., high to low), the numeric values are at the bottom and the null values are at the top. Which is not what I would like to see.

In my testing, if I convert all the formulas in the columns to values, the sort works as I would like.

Is there a way to resolve this behavior of Excel so that when I perform the sort function, it sorts low to high or high to low?

Thanks,

Steve
 

Excel Facts

Why are there 1,048,576 rows in Excel?
The Excel team increased the size of the grid in 2007. There are 2^20 rows and 2^14 columns for a total of 17 billion cells.
The "" text string has a TYPE() value of 2 ( which XL uses for comparisons) Therefore "" is before Z when sorting high to low
Any chance you can replace the "" with 0? ( and hide it with CF or XL options)<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }</style>
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
The "" text string has a TYPE() value of 2 ( which XL uses for comparisons) Therefore "" is before Z when sorting high to low
Any chance you can replace the "" with 0? ( and hide it with CF or XL options)<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }</style>

That thought occurred to me, however, the formula could also result in zero. Also thought of using negative numbers, but that would mess up the sort order.
 
Upvote 0
You could use a helper column (say col B) containing =ISNUMBER(A1) pulled down
Which will return TRUE or FALSE then select A and B then sort by col B - Descending - then by col A - descending.
Cells with "" will then be after the numeric values. You can hide the helper column one way or another
 
Upvote 0
You could use a helper column (say col B) containing =ISNUMBER(A1) pulled down
Which will return TRUE or FALSE then select A and B then sort by col B - Descending - then by col A - descending.
Cells with "" will then be after the numeric values. You can hide the helper column one way or another

Thanks for that suggestion. That is what I have done and then sorting on that column as the first key and then the primary column that I wanted sorted is working as I would like. The "helper" column is column R and I keep that hidden from view.

Code:
Sub sort_rulup()


Application.ScreenUpdating = False
On Error Resume Next
    
    activesheet.Sort.SortFields.Clear
    activesheet.Sort.SortFields.Add Key:=Range("R9:R258"), Order:=xlDescending
    activesheet.Sort.SortFields.Add Key:=Range("N9:N258"), Order:=xlDescending
    
    With activesheet.Sort
        .SetRange Range("rescomp_table")
        .Header = xlYes
        .Apply
    End With
    
    Range("N9").Select
    
End Sub
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
The earlier Range.Sort method is a little more compact:

Code:
Sub sort_rulup()
  Range("rescomp_table").Sort Key1:=Range("R9"), Order1:=xlDescending, _
                              Key2:=Range("N9"), Order2:=xlDescending, _
                              Header:=xlYes
End Sub
 
Upvote 0

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