Description
In this video I'll show you how to sort by date in Excel.
Timestamps:
Introduction: 0:00
Steps to Sort by Date in Excel: 0:28
Conclusion: 3:04
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Video Transcript:
Step 1. Open your spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel and locate the column that contains your dates or years. In our comic book dataset, this will be the Publication Date column.
Step 2. Click any of the values in this column. Make sure "Home" is selected on the Ribbon, and then navigate to the Number section. Check inside of the formatting drop-down. You can see in this example that the values in this field are formatted as Custom. To fix that, I'll highlight all of the values in that column (with the exception of the header), click the formatting drop-down, and then choose either "Short Date" or "Long Date." The format of your values will be changed automatically. This is critical to do to ensure that Excel recognizes your values as dates rather than plain text. If some of your dates are formatted incorrectly or contain accidental spaces, Excel will treat them like words and sort them alphabetically instead of chronologically, which completely scrambles your timeline.
Step 3. Click any single cell within the Publication Date column that you want to sort by. You do not need to highlight the entire column, as Excel will automatically keep the rest of the row data aligned with the sorted column.
Step 4. Navigate to the Home tab on the top ribbon and look for the Editing section on the far right side.
Step 5. Click the "Sort and Filter" button to open a drop-down menu of options.
Step 6. Select "Sort Oldest to Newest" if you want to see your data in forward chronological order, starting with the earliest comics from the mid-twentieth century and moving forward to modern releases.
Alternatively, click "Sort Newest to Oldest" if you prefer a reverse chronological view, putting the most recent publications at the very top of your worksheet. Excel will instantly reorganize the entire table based on your choice.
If you prefer a quicker method that doesn't involve navigating the top ribbon tabs, you can achieve the exact same result by right-clicking. Simply right-click on any cell in your date column, hover your mouse over Sort in the context menu that appears, and select either Oldest to Newest or Newest to Oldest from the flyout menu. This is a great shortcut to save time when you are working inside a massive file and want to keep your focus entirely on the data block you are modifying.