I am trying to sort journals, or magazine titles (many thousands of them) for
some library work. Some start with the word "The" and some just start with
the word "Journal" while others start with other words.
I want to sort them alphabetically but ignore the word "the" without
deleting that word.
Is there a way to sort by putting a wild card, space, or something in to
ignore it?
thank you.

the easiest way is to use a helper column
if your titles are in column A
then insert a new column B and enter in B1
=if(left(A1,4)="The ",right(A1,len(A1)-4),A1)
Copy to the end of your data
And sort by column B

"davidandmary" wrote:

I am trying to sort journals, or magazine titles (many thousands of them) for
some library work. Some start with the word "The" and some just start with
the word "Journal" while others start with other words.
I want to sort them alphabetically but ignore the word "the" without
deleting that word.
Is there a way to sort by putting a wild card, space, or something in to
ignore it?
thank you.