I've been searching through several old topics on alphanumeric sorts and have
not seen any problem that resembles mine. So, any help is appreciated.

I have a worksheet with several columns (~10). I am currently sorting this
worksheet based on three columns (e.g. A then B then C). Column A is a
text-formatted family name for a group of data within the worksheet. Column B
is a family number. This further breaks down the families into "subfamilies,"
if you will, based on the family numbers. The final column is each item's
name, which are alphanumeric. Here is a very crude representation of this
that hopefully is easier to understand:

COLUMN A COLUMN B COLUMN C
AMF 1 item1
FAM 1 item10
FAM 1 item2
FAM 2 item45
FAM 3 item67
FAM 3 item7

The problem is the sorting that Excel does in Column C. All of the cells are
formatted as text because there is text present. Because of this, if I have
say ten items under one family number, Excel will sort 1, 10, 2, 3, 4, and so
on. I want item10 to be last in this instance. I know one easy fix would be
to make item1 item01. But that would ultimately change the name of each item
(the actual names are more elaborate than "item1" and are published without
the added zero, so it wouldn't be kosher to add a number) and take too much
time.

Is there any other way to get column C to sort the way I want?

Thanks in advance.

K. Bock