How do you sort numerically in Excel, not by the first digit but the entire number?

Question

How do you sort numerically in Excel, not by the first digit but the entire number?

Anonymous

My excel is sorting by the first digit in the cell. I need it to sort the entire number. It is sorting as follows:

013

093

100

1000

20

2000

I need it to sort in actual numerical order, by the entire number.

Am I missing something? Sort only gives A to Z.

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2 answers

Answer 1

HansV 462.6K MVP Volunteer Moderator

This means that your data are text values even thought they look like numbers.

Select the range, then click Sort & Filter > Custom Sort... in the Editing group of the Home tab of the ribbon.

Click OK.

Excel should ask you what you want.

Select the option to sort anything that looks like a number. as a number, then click OK.

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Answer 2

Hi, cdt728

Thank you for using Microsoft products and publishing them in the community.

You can follow the steps below:

First, make sure your numbers don't have any leading zeros or text formatting. If they do, you will need to convert them to a plain number format.

Select the column containing the numbers.

Go to the Data menu bar and select the Sort button.

In the Sort dialog box, select "Cell Value" as the basis for sorting.

Select "Ascending" or "Descending" to determine the direction of the sort.

Confirm your selection and click "OK" to finish sorting.

I hope the above information can help you. Feel free to send a message if you need further help.

Best wishes

Aiden.C - MSFT |Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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How do you sort numerically in Excel, not by the first digit but the entire number?

2 answers