Excel 2007: The sort when keeps changing sizes.

Question

When sorting items in Excel 2007, the "Sort" window keeps changing sizes - from the default size to filling the entire window.  Is there a solution?

Answer 1

Has anyone got an answer to this yet?  I have the EXACT same issue with it getting bigger after the 2nd then the 3rd time I custom sort.  Very frustrating. 

Hello sgesualdi-

I have the exact same problem and know how frustrating it is.  Here is my solution.  I hope it works for you.

The cause of this problem (in my experience) is the display size of text on your computer.  Try these steps to solve the problem:

(1)    Right click on your desktop and select “Personalize”

(2)    When the “Personalization” dialog box open, click on “Display” in the bottom left hand side of the dialog box

(3)    When the “Display” dialog box opens, check the size of text that you have selected

(4)    If you have selected “Medium – 125%” or “Larger – 150%” then change it to “Smaller – 100% (default”)

a.      Click the “Apply” button

b.      Logoff and re-logon to your computer for the settings to take effect

c.      Run Excel and see if this fixes your problem

(5)    If you already have “Smaller – 100% (default”) selected then this solution won’t help.

Here is my summary of this problem:

(1)    The Excel 2007 Sort Dialog Box increases in size each time I sort data.

(2)    If I use the sort feature several times in a row, eventually the Sort Dialog Box will fill up my entire monitor.  I have 2 monitors and eventually, the Sort Dialog Box will spill over to my 2 monitor. 

(3)    If I close all open files and Excel and restart Excel then I’m back to the first step.

(4)    The exact same problem occurs with the “Data Remove Duplicates” feature.

When I posted my original question back in February 2011, people suggested various solutions but none of the solutions worked.  I gave up searching for a solution for this problem with Excel 2007 because it was wasting so much of my time and really frustrating.  I reinstalled Excel 2002 (and Word 2002) so that I could work effectively and efficiently ever since that time.  I recently discovered that other people are still experiencing this problem so I checked out the text size “solution” and it worked.

This “solution” is only a workaround.  It allows individual users to fix the problem on their computer assuming that they accept that they have to change their computer to use the default smaller fonts. Not practical for people with vision problems.  The real solution for this problem is for Microsoft to determine the root cause and fix that problem.  Is the root cause an Excel 2007 problem or a Windows 7 problem?  It also goes to show how poorly Microsoft regression tests their software.

I confirmed today that this problem has been fixed with Excel 2010 and Windows 7. 

Will I spend my money to upgrade to Office 2010?  NO WAY!  MICROSOFT WOULD NEED  TO PAY ME TO INSTALL THAT THING.

I find it astonishing that there are at least 3 threads on this forum, after so many years, without an answer to this question (including this one).  Does anyone from Microsoft ever read this forum and provide solutions or at least workarounds to these types of issues?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2007-excel/excel-sorting-dialog-box-keeps-getting-larger/d562264a-48e9-4665-a4b4-531983ee0038

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2007-excel/is-there-a-fix-for-the-sort-dialog-box-getting/ded92330-ef66-4d3f-8a52-a29882c6e05f

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2007-excel/excel-2007-the-sort-when-keeps-changing-sizes/bf0f4184-10b2-4602-ac2a-dc5cea25adf2?page=3

Answer 2

I am having this exact same problem and none of the replies are useful.

Answer 3

The Sort dialog box can be resized. Have you tried resizing it? Or are you saying you keep resizing it but then it resizes each time you open it?

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~Beth Melton Microsoft Office MVP

Answer 4

Can you mention the steps so that we can repro the error? Or try posting the screen shots so that we can have a look at it and help you better?

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Sachin Shetty

Answer 5

Do you mean the sort dialog box where you select the columns by which you are going to sort the data?

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