Sorting

[Topher]

Here's the situation:

I want to sort the info of data that I have laid out for tracks I've recorded.
The data includes: Date recorded, Filename, Length, File Location, Word Count.
Some additional data that I will be adding continuously is: Genre, Subject, Finished?, Explicit?,..... and other hard to explain columns that I will intend to sort by.

Most importantly, is that I have the lyrics written out completely. Some tracks contain 40 lines (rows) of lyrics, and some contain 4 lines (rows) of lyrics.

Like this:

A1..............................................B1
Track1 blah blah.mp3.....................First line of song,
.................................................Second line of song,
.................................................Third line of song,
.................................................Fourth line of sone
Track2 blip blip.mp3.......................2nd song, 1st line,
.................................................2nd song, 2nd line
.................................................2nd song, 3rd line
.................................................2nd song, 4th line
.................................................2nd song, 5th line
.................................................2nd song, 6th line
Track3 you get the idea.mp3..........Just one line in this song...
Track4 1 for good measure.mp3.......This song has a hundred lines
.................................................And I want to keep them together
.................................................when I am sorting
.................................................the entire collection by data in a column
.................................................Exceptions being that this song
.................................................Could have rows sorted elsewhere
.................................................according to the commands set forth
.................................................in the sorting tool.
.................................................Let's say I sorted the songs so that
.................................................track 1 would end up at the bottom and
.................................................this track 4 at the top
.................................................I want the lyrics to stay in the same
.................................................order with the title
.................................................of the song.
.................................................unless of course I wanted to weed out
.................................................the poor quality or explicit lyrics
.................................................then the sorting would bring them all together
.................................................at the bottom or top,
.................................................but the rest of the song would
.................................................remain intact.


(Sorry for all the periods!)

Here is a picture.

I hope I asked this question right... lol
I feel like it's easily possible, like a 7th grader could do it.
Anyways, I also have a column that is a master sequential order or the lyrics.

I have the lyrics, I just need to puzzle them together to make masterpiece songs, if Excel can help, I will be in business.

Much thanks!
-Topher

 

[Burrgogi]

You haven't made it clear which column you want to sort by.

Also, that screenshot you've attached is so tiny I can't made heads or tails of the data on your spreadsheet.

I see your lyrics are contained in column B, are they all contained in one cell or multiple rows?

 

[Topher]

I will intend to be sorting by different columns.

I need to select chorus lines, hooks, match subject content so that the songs stick to one subject, weed out (and probably delete) everything that sucks,

I made the screenshot small so that nobody can read the lyrics (bashful, protective, about that) I guess I could write some example lyrics and blow that shot up.

But... the lyrics themselves are in multiple rows. that is where the sorting issue comes in... when I sort by song title, the lyrics below the song title row are ignored.

On the writings sheet, I have squeezed 300,000 words into about 1500 cells using line breaks. but that limits me in being able to edit words out and in-between.

 

[shadow12345]

could you not fill the other data down the same number of rows as the lyrics for each song?

eg

Track 1 ....... dum de dum
Track 1 ....... Dee Dee
Track 1 ....... Ta Ta
Track 2..........Trumble
Track 2 .........Dumble

Then the sort would work anyway...

 

[Topher]

Thanks Shadow,
Yes I had actually tried that. It took me like 25 minutes to fill the track titles down to the next track title, and I had to be careful not to mess up. It was sort of tedious. But i doubt there is a faster way.

So then I sorted it and I thought I didn't get the results I wanted, but rethinking it now, I don't see how that wouldn't work.

Well we'll see I'll give it a shot over the next few days.

 

[Burrgogi]

I will intend to be sorting by different columns.

I need to select chorus lines, hooks, match subject content so that the songs stick to one subject, weed out (and probably delete) everything that sucks,

I made the screenshot small so that nobody can read the lyrics (bashful, protective, about that) I guess I could write some example lyrics and blow that shot up.

But... the lyrics themselves are in multiple rows. that is where the sorting issue comes in... when I sort by song title, the lyrics below the song title row are ignored.

On the writings sheet, I have squeezed 300,000 words into about 1500 cells using line breaks. but that limits me in being able to edit words out and in-between.

First of all, I fail to understand why you are trying to accomplish this project in Excel. You could just as easily create a table in MS Word and create column headers just as you have now, date recorded, filename, etc. Is there something special about this project that you feel MUST be done in Excel? If it's just plain text you're working with - I suggest you use Word for this. Word has sorting capabilities.

Secondly, having your lyrics contained in multiple rows only makes your project more complicated than it needs to be. Again, is there a special reason why you can't have them all in 1 cell? You can format the lyrics column to autowrap. Alternatively, if you want to set the line breaks yourself, press Alt + Enter to begin a new line within the cell.

 

[Topher]

First of all, I fail to understand why you are trying to accomplish this project in Excel. You could just as easily create a table in MS Word and create column headers just as you have now, date recorded, filename, etc. Is there something special about this project that you feel MUST be done in Excel? If it's just plain text you're working with - I suggest you use Word for this. Word has sorting capabilities.

Secondly, having your lyrics contained in multiple rows only makes your project more complicated than it needs to be. Again, is there a special reason why you can't have them all in 1 cell? You can format the lyrics column to autowrap. Alternatively, if you want to set the line breaks yourself, press Alt + Enter to begin a new line within the cell.

I typed all the lyrics up in MS WORD. After the tracks lyrics are typed next to the filename, I copy& paste into excel.
I'm using excel for this because when I'm going through editing, I will be using cells adjacent to the lyrics, to identify characteristics of the lines.

I might already have this thing under control.
Excel allows me to be much more organized, input formulas, combine cells using the =c12&""&c13, I can also see it much more clearly, I can hide a bunch of cells that I don't need or am not focused on at the time, I can format it with colors, and sort by color, and I can make hyperlinks directly to the track I'm listening to without having to navigate through windows explorer or my media player.
Organization and management of data is the key here.
And keeping a consistent standard of each track's data.
And the page is virtually limitless, which is not the case in Word, dude.
There's really no reason why I wouldn't use excel.

And as I stated, I am using Word too.
As you were talking about line breaks, can you tell me how I can paste multiple line into one cell? Every time I paste, the go into different rows. Unless I click inside the actual cell or formula bar and paste each tracks lyrics there one by one... too tedious for as many tracks as I have.
I tried substituting ^p for ^l in MS word but it didn't work.