there is a good chance that some of the data, if numeric, either new or old,
it text even though it looks like numbers. If you do a quick sum() on some
of the numbers, if it says 0 it is probably text.
a helper column with =value(trim(A1))
then copy and paste special values will convert to numeric.
There are other ways to convert text numbers to numeric, depending on what
is really there.

If it is text, there may be leading spaces. Check the trim() function.

"laura" wrote:

I have an excel spread sheet that the data in the column sorts newly entered
or changed data seperatly from old data.