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Excel Sort Add-in -- Excel Special Sort

After I wrote a blog article about sorting by colour, Jim Cone offered me a copy of his Special Sort Excel add-in. I was really impressed by it, and was amazed by the wide variety of sort options that it has. For example, you can:

  • sort a list by the length of the text in the cells
  • ignore leading articles (A, An, The)
  • sort by cell or font colour (Excel 2003)
  • sort based on the reverse order of the cell contents
  • sort by numbers at the end of the cell text

There's a detailed list of the sort options below.

When you install the add-in, it creates a command on the Excel menu or Ribbon, and adds a Special Sort command to the pop-up menu that appears when you right-click.

excel sort 01

In the Special Sort dialog box you can select a sort option, and set the criteria for that option, such as the separator in the screenshot below. Then select the Sort By options, and the Header Row and Borders settings.

excel sort 02

If you're not sure which Sort Option to select, double-click on a sort option to learn more about it.

excel sort 03

Do You Need the Special Sort Add-in?

If you don't do any fancy sorting, you can use Excel's built-in Sort features. But, if you're spending time on workarounds and formulas in helper columns, you might find what you need in Jim's add-in ($19 US), and save yourself some time and aggravation.

You can download the full trial version of Special Sort, to see how it works.

Jim also has other free Excel add-ins and trial version Excel add-ins that you can download.

Note: I don't earn a commission on the sales -- it's just an add-in that I think would be useful to many people who visit my website.

Sort Options

Custom List 

Same as provided by Excel’s built-in sort utility.

Standard

  • Same as provided by Excel’s built-in sort utility.

Blanks

  • Places blank cells at the top when sorting. (blanks normally sort to the bottom)

All Data

  • The entire cell text is used.  However, the left or right-most number group is
    modified to sort in numerical order.
  • “Sheet123x, Sheet13y, Sheet9z” sorts as “Sheet009z, Sheet013y, Sheet123x”. 
  • Also see the ‘Nums’ sort type.

Alphabetical

  • The sort is done as if  the text in each worksheet cell was in alphabetical order. 
  • “TAPED”, for example, is sorted as if it were “ADEPT”.

x Articles

  • “A”, “An”, “The” and any junk characters at the beginning of the text are ignored.
  • Press the Shift key to treat leading numbers as if they were spelled out.

Color

  • Cell or font color.  (right-click the Sort Type box to pick the top five sort colors)

Date

  • Day of week, day of month, day of year, month or year (valid date in cell required).

Decimal

  • Any number sequence separated by dots.  Sorting is done in true numerical order.

Length

  • The number of characters in the cell text. (zebra will sort before elephant)

Nums

  • Left or right-most group of numbers within the cell text. (can be a single digit)
  • All other characters in the cell are ignored.
  • Sorting is done in true numerical order…  123, 9, 13  sorts as  9, 13, 123.
  • Cells without numbers are sorted to the bottom of the list.

Random

  • The sort is completely random, by column or by row. 

Reverse

  • The sort is done as if  the text in each cell were reversed. 
  • “Sheet One”, for example, sorts as “enO teehS”.

First / Last Separator

  • Text to the right of the first or the last separator is used for the sort.
  • 36 separator options (plus numbers or letters) are automatically displayed.

Middle

  • Sort text specified by your choice of start position and length of text.
  • Start and length options are automatically displayed.

Prefix / Suffix Length

  • The first or last set of characters are used for the sort.
  • A scrollbar is used to specify the length desired .

Table

  • Text / numbers are consecutively ordered across the rows or down the columns.

Buy or Test the Special Sort Add-in

You can download the full trial version of Special Sort, to see how it works. Then, to buy the Special Sort add-in ($19 US), contact Jim by email -- james.cone@comcast.net

Jim also has other free Excel add-ins and trial version Excel add-ins that you can download.

Note: I don't earn a commission on the sales -- it's just an Excel add-in that I think would be useful to many people who visit my website.

Excel Sort Data Tutorials

1. Excel Sort Data -- Basics
2. Excel Sort Data -- VBA
3. Excel Sort Add-in -- Excel Special Sort  

 

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