You're very welcome Sheila.
Glad it worked for you.

Regards

Roger Govier


Sheila D wrote:
Now that is VERY clever, thanks a lot Roger

Sheila

"Roger Govier" wrote:


Hi Sheila & Jilly

Make a copy of your data first - just in case!!!

Assuming that you only want to sort by the first part of the UK postcode,
then set up a helper column and use this formula.
This assumes your postcodes are in column A, change reference to suit.

=IF(ISNUMBER(--MID(A1,2,1)),LEFT(A1,1)&TEXT(MID(A1,2,2),"00"),LEF T(A1,2)&TEXT(MID(A1,3,2),"00"))
Copy down the column as far as required, select ALL OF YOUR DATA, and sort
by the helper column ascending.


Regards

Roger Govier


Sheila D wrote:

This is exactly the question I came on line to look for an answer to so hope
it's all right to tag on the end of this one - my postcodes have varying
alpha, numeric i.e SE2, SE11, S2 etc and cannot see how to get them to sort
properly as there is no logical way to split alpha / numeric. Thanks for any
help

Sheila

"Dave O" wrote:



Please excuse my ignorance: are post codes always in the format
alpha-alpha-number-number-number?

Excel is treating these entries as text because of the BA characters.
If you separate the alpha characters from the numerics into two
different columns, you can sort on the different columns to get your
desired results. So if you enter two new columns, you can parse the
alpha characters into one column using this formula (assuming that post
codes always have two leading alpha characters, which was the genesis
behind my original question):
=MID(A1,1,2)
.... where A1 is a post code.

Then get the numeric portion in a new column with this formula:
=MID(A1,3,LEN(A1))

If a post code has a varying number of leading alpha characters, let us
know and we'll try a different solution.