Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Word 2007 – Sort Words, Paragraphs and Table Cells


Word 2007 finally fixed a huge problem that existed in earlier versions – it looked like there was no way to sort data in a list.

This wasn’t the case – you used the table sort feature but it was far from being self evident.

Now Word 2007 uses the same tool it just puts it in a smart place.

To sort a list or series of words or paragraphs, select the text.

From the Ribbon, click the Home button and click the Sort button in the Paragraph group.

Choose Paragraph to sort on the first word and click Ok to sort the data in order.

If you’re using an earlier version of Word, then visit this post to see how to sort in Word 2003 and earlier:

Sorting a Word list
http://www.projectwoman.com/labels/Table%20Sort.html

Helen Bradley

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007

Sorting a Word list

While it looks like Word has no tool for sorting a list – only for sorting data in a table, this is not the case and the Table sort tool works just fine for sorting data in a list.

To sort a list, such as a list of names, where each name appears on a new line and the last name is separated from the first by a comma and a space, choose Table, Sort. From the Sort by list, choose Field 1 and then, from the Then by list choose Field 2 and click Ok. This sorts the data into order by last name and then by first name where there are two or more people with the same last name.

If the names appear with the first name then a space and then last name you’ll have to tell Word to differentiate between the two names. To do this, select your list and choose Table, Sort, Options and click the Other option and press the Space bar and click Ok. From the Sort by list, choose Word 2 and then, from the Then by list choose Word 1 and click Ok. This sorts the data into order by last name and then by first name where there are two or more people with the same last name.

If you find that Word 2 doesn’t appear as an option in the Sort by list, click Ok to exit the Table Sort dialog and select the option again.

Helen Bradley