Sorting Dates Faster

[Minecrafter1005]

Hi all

I've been putting data into my spreadsheet, and whilst I was putting in the data, I realised that the order of my list shows the dates in the wrong order. Is there a way I can order them quickly, or will I have to go through and change the position of each row individually? It would be easier if there was a way I could sort this, as I have nearly 600 rows of data.

 

[Sufiyan97]

Why don't you just apply filter and sort oldest to newest.

 

[Minecrafter1005]

Why don't you just apply filter and sort oldest to newest.

I'm trying to figure out how to do this and I'm not quite sure how, can you explain please?

 

[Sufiyan97]

Just type anywhere in your data

Ctrl + A
Ctrl + Shift + L
Select date column filter dropdown and select sort oldest to newest

 

[Minecrafter1005]

Just type anywhere in your data

Ctrl + A
Ctrl + Shift + L
Select date column filter dropdown and select sort oldest to newest

View attachment 72803

Ah I see where my issue is.

The date formatting I've used isn't recognised in excel's formatting, is there a way I can format it or will I have to manually rewrite the dates to sort them properly?

 

[Joe4]

The dead giveaway is that your dates appear to be left-justified. Valid date and numeric entries are right-justified, by default.
This suggests that your entries are actually text values, which is why they are nort sorting properly (they will be sorted alphabetically).

You can convert them to valid date entries by doing the following:
1. Selecting the column
2. Select "Text to Columns" from the Data menu
3. Click "Next" until you get to "Step 3"
4. Choose the "Date" option, selecting the "MDY" option
5. Click "Finish"

This should convert your entries to valid dates, and you can sort them and apply any date format you want.

 

[Alex Blakenburg]

And the accompanying pictures for that are....