Hi,

The following are probably two of many possible ways to accomplish what you
want.

Method A:
You could easily separate the city-state-zip info into three individual
columns without having to retype the data.
1. Insert two blank columns on the right-hand side of the column
containing the combined data.
2. Select the entire column, click on 'Data' (in the Toolbar) = 'Text
to Columns' = 'Next' (to go to page 2 of the 'Convert text to columns
wizard') = select the the delimiting character(s) (e.g, comma and space)
that separate the three components (city, state, and ZIP) and click 'Next' =
'Finish'.

Method B (This assumes that the combined column contains the state data as
two letter abbreviations and the ZIP codes as 5 numbers)
1. Insert a blank column on the right-hand side of the column
containing the combined info (let's say A)
2. Enter the formula in the first data-containing cell of the newly
inserted column (let's say B2)
=LEFT(RIGHT(A2,8),2)
and fill down the column B with the formula (the shortcut for this is,
select B2, and move the cursor pointer to the bottom-right corner of the
highlighted cell, and double click)

Regards,
B.R.Ramachandran



"Sharon" wrote:

I have a very large database that I need to be able to sort by state.
Unfortunately, whoever put the database together including city,state,zip all
in the same column. Is there any way that I can still sort by state without
retyping (retyping is not an option bc there are over 7000 entries)?