Left to right sorting

Question

Hi.

I'm wondering whether it is possible to do the following using Microsoft Excel and if so, does anyone have any useful tips,  methods or formulas to do so: Is it possible to alphabetically left-to-right sort multiple rows of data? 

I know how to use the left-to-right function however my data set is over 5000 rows deep and therefore individually sorting lines is unfortunately not an option.

If you're able to help it would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

Darren

Answer 1

Please post screenshot of few lines of data and result expected. That would help us to give you right macro to do the job,

Answer 2

Thank you for the fast replies, however I'm not entirely sure that methods suggested by Ketul and Tasos would work in my instance.

I am looking to sort each value as a quick and easy means to eliminate all values in the row other than the lowest alphabetically. i.e. my data set is formatted in the form of patents which follow a country abbreviation preceded by a date and series of numbers, for example US201600000 - I want to sort the patent in each row with the earliest date to the left, with newer papers falling to the right. Forgive me if I'm wrong but as far as I understand pivot tables to work they only filter the data present rather than sort it in a manner to allow such elimination.

Gord, I apply the macro you have suggested.

Kindest regards to everyone

Answer 3

Hi,

you can do it, using a vba macro

sample:

data in range A1:E20

pic1, before

pic2, after

is that you want ?

Answer 4

Macro to sort left to right on multiple rows.

Sub Sort_Across_Columns()

'Tom Ogilvy macro

Dim r As Long

Dim LRow As Long

Dim lCol As Long

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False

    Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual

    LRow = ActiveSheet.Cells(Rows.Count, "A").End(xlUp).row

    lCol = ActiveSheet.Cells(ActiveCell.row, _

    Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column

    For r = 1 To LRow

        With Cells(r, 1).Resize(1, lCol)

            .Sort Key1:=Cells(r, 2), Order1:=xlAscending, _

            Header:=xlGuess, _

            Orientation:=xlLeftToRight, _

            DataOption1:=xlSortNormal

        End With

    Next r

    Application.ScreenUpdating = True

    Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic

End Sub

Gord

Answer 5

I would recommend using PivotTables.

There are lots of tutorials online on how to use it. It's a great tool to solve your sorting questions. 

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Overview-of-PivotTable-and-PivotChart-reports-00a5bf71-65cb-49f9-b321-85bb7b0b06c2