I receive a spreadsheet that has 183 rows of data and 13 columns.

I would like to sort so that they are grouped together so if anything that
matches row 1 exactly falls in line after row 1. Then the next group would
match exactly and so on.

What can I do? I tried the Exact function but couldn't get that to work but
I've never used it before. Is that something that should work in this
scenario or is there another way to do this?

If you have any date columns then format them as yyyymmdd.
Then in Col N enter
=A1&B1&C1.... &M1 (all columns with & in between each)
then sort on Col N after selecting the whole range Col A-M

or you can do the following;
Excel allows you to sort on a maximum of 3 columns at a time.

You will have to sort 3 columns at a time...
Select the whole range (all 13 columns) then sort on last 3 columns (K-M)
Next sort on (H-J), then (E-G), (B-D) and at the end only on Col A

Save a copy first. Also to test whether this will work on your data first
sort only Cos B-D and then on A
Rows with same values in Col A-D should be together


Let me know how it goes and which method you tried.

"scr" wrote:

I receive a spreadsheet that has 183 rows of data and 13 columns.

I would like to sort so that they are grouped together so if anything that
matches row 1 exactly falls in line after row 1. Then the next group would
match exactly and so on.

What can I do? I tried the Exact function but couldn't get that to work but
I've never used it before. Is that something that should work in this
scenario or is there another way to do this?

Hi,

You can use sort. Since you don't seem to care which columns are sorted
how, you put your cursor into a single cell in column 13 and click Sort
Ascending, click a single cell in column 12 and repeat the sort. Move from
left to right doing each column once.

Alternately, choose Data, Sort and specifiy the first column as the first
sort order, and the second column as the "And then" sort order, and the 3rd
column as the 3 level sort order. Click sort. Repeat this until you have
done all 13 columns.

In 2007, you can define the sort order for all 13 columns at once and then
sort.

--
Thanks,
Shane Devenshire


"scr" wrote:

I receive a spreadsheet that has 183 rows of data and 13 columns.

I would like to sort so that they are grouped together so if anything that
matches row 1 exactly falls in line after row 1. Then the next group would
match exactly and so on.

What can I do? I tried the Exact function but couldn't get that to work but
I've never used it before. Is that something that should work in this
scenario or is there another way to do this?