Quick Excel question

Ironic Namesake · 27 Feb 2010 at 21:12

I've been working on a spreadsheet, but for some reason when I sort some of the columns, the top row gets included and moves somewhere down the line which is frustrating me.

Also runs a tad slow but I guess that's my fault as the spreadsheet has grown to be over 5mb in size

Just a simple list like this :

Any idea how I can stop this happening? Thanks in advance

SiriusB · 27 Feb 2010 at 21:18

Do you mean the header row with the name of the colums? Just highlight the cells you want to sort first, then sort? Or am I missing something?

Ironic Namesake · 27 Feb 2010 at 21:23

Yeah, the header row with the name of the colums moves ,I want it to stay at the top.
Works fine on other sheets, just this one moves the header row for some reason :confused:

Eg. I'd click on H2 then hit sort Z-A and the header row will disappear to the bottom somewhere

Ironic Namesake · 27 Feb 2010 at 21:45

turns out Excel wasn't recognising that row as a header - changed the formatting to highlight the top fields (different fill colour) and it works a treat

.

At least I don't have to select the lot manually - some of these sheets have up to 45,000 lines

SiriusB · 27 Feb 2010 at 22:36

45K

Time to create a database methinks!

Ironic Namesake · 27 Feb 2010 at 22:56

Yup, I have no idea how to use databases though

Phones have too many parts

PMKeates · 27 Feb 2010 at 23:27

Ironic Namesake said:
At least I don't have to select the lot manually - some of these sheets have up to 45,000 lines

If you have a lot of tabulated data to select, highlight the upper left cell of the table, then hold CTRL+SHIFT and tap the right arrow - it will highlight the entire row of the table. While still holding CTRL+SHIFT, hit down - it will now have highlighted the entire table

Ironic Namesake · 27 Feb 2010 at 23:31

PMKeates said:
If you have a lot of tabulated data to select, highlight the upper left cell of the table, then hold CTRL+SHIFT and tap the right arrow - it will highlight the entire row of the table. While still holding CTRL+SHIFT, hit down - it will now have highlighted the entire table

Thanks for the tip, will give that a go ...

Usually if there's a lot of cells to select I'll scroll down , find the number of rows then enter it into the top left (eg. A2:A35000)

Excel is a great piece of kit, find new features all the time

rctneil · 28 Feb 2010 at 11:09

Yesw, This definiteley looks like a candidate for a database. Just have a browse around and follow a few tutorials and you'll soon figure out the basics and why they are so much better for organsing this sort of thing.