Hi Carol,

Try this, assuming your names are in column A1 down.
Insert a helper column B, put this formula in B1 and drag
down to the end of your data.

=MID(A1,FIND("|",SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","|",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"
",""))))+1,100)

Provided that your names are all separated by a space (as per your example),
this should
give you the last names only in column B.

Now highlight ALL of your data and go to DataSort and select column B
ascending.

Hopefully that should be all. Just delete column B to tidy up.

HTH
Martin


"alpha names" wrote in message
...
Martin W

The names are in one column, address is in another column, the state is in
another column, etc.

The column with the names is like this example John and Mary Smith

How do I alpha this.

Thank you

Carol

"MartinW" wrote:

Hi alphanames,

How is your data set out? Are the names, addresses, phone numbers all
in one column or several columns?

Your list can definitely be sorted the way you want but there are many
different approaches depending on how your data is setup and equally
important is what outcome you wish to achieve.

HTH
Martin

"alpha names" <alpha wrote in message
...
I have a project in excel. It is a list of names of all of our clients.
I
need to put this list in alpabetibe order. The first name is first and
the
last name is typed last. There is also address,phone numbers.etc. How
can
I
do this or can I not