At 17:28 24/01/2009 +1000, Bruce Hooley wrote:
Can anyone tell me if it is possible to sort entries in a table so that it sorts down the column instead of across? Like a phone book does. I'm working with a number of two and three column tables and so far I have only been able to sort across. Surely it should be possible for the program to figure out how many rows would be necessary and then fill each consecutive column instead of each consecutive row?? I've tried to do this in Word and in OpenOffice without success in either so far, but I need my final output in OO.
One way to achieve this would be to format your data slightly differently. Instead of creating a two- or three-column table, first format your document in two or three columns. If you need complete pages, you can do this at Format | Page... | Columns. But in general you will need only parts of pages: in this case, first create a section at Insert | Section... and select the number of columns on the Columns tab there.
In either case, then create your table, but with only a single column - which will flow around the columns in the page or section. If you sort this, the sort routine sees the table as having a single column, of course, and does what you need.
I think you will be limited to having all columns of the same width when using this technique (because all the cells are part of a single table column), but if you want the sort to work the way you do, that will presumably be no problem.
I trust this helps. Brian Barker --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
