I need to sort a large amount of data by a column that contains 3-character
numbers; some of the numbers are a mix of numbers and text (e.g. 16C) and
some of the numbers are all numbers (e.g. 151). I am using Excel 2003 on a
Windows XP computer. According to the Excel Help, I should be able to "sort
anything that looks like a number as a number" as long as I have formatted
all the numbers in the column to be text (which I have done). However, I
can't find a way to specify to sort numbers stored as text as numbers. I want
16C to show in the column after 151 but before 161, but when I select
Data/Sort... there is nothing that indicates which way I want to sort the
numbers. Instead, the numbers are sorted first by number, then by alpha (i.e.
16C shows up after 999). It is sorted the same way regardless of whether the
numbers are formatted as numbers or text. This is very frustrating because
the Help doesn't give me any information on how to force Excel to sort the
way I need it to sort.

I've read some of the recent posts about sorting numbers that include text,
but the solutions all seem to require an extra column with a long formula to
make Excel sort correctly. While I am familiar with formulas and have
successfully used them, I don't understand why this type of sorting would
require formulas when the Help documentation seems to indicate that Excel
will already sort the way I need. Is this a known glitch? Why would it be
mentioned in the Help but not actually perform the way it is documented?

Thanks for your help.