At 13:35 08/06/2008 +0200, Hans Noname wrote:
I have in a spreadsheet a small table. It looks a bit like: ... colN colO colP ... ... ... rowX Aa 5 1 rowY Bb 2 0 rowZ Cc 5 3 rowQ Dd 1 0After sorting I would like it to be like: Cc 5 3 Aa 5 1 Bb 2 0 Dd 1 0 For this I selected the area I want to be sorted, asked to sort first by colP then by colO. But colO en colP stay the way they were, only colN gets sorted to the correct order. What am I doing wrong?
I think your problem is that the cells columns O and P contain not values but formulae. When you sort cell ranges containing formulae, it is these formulae that are moved about - according to their current values, of course - and they are modified as they are moved in the same way that they would be if you copied or filled them into new cells. The values that you will then see displayed in the cells are the results of the moved and modified formulae, which may or may not be the values that were displayed before those formulae were moved.
For example, if the values in column O were just a copy of the corresponding columns in another column - say, column K - then the actual contents of column O might be formulae reading =K5, =K6, etc. If you sort these formulae, they will all be both moved and modified, but the end result will be the same formulae in the same places - and exactly the same values in the cells of column O.
Depending on exactly how your spreadsheet is constructed, the solution may be to freeze the values of the formulae in columns O and P before you do the sort. To achieve this, select and copy the block of values in those columns (NX to PQ). Then paste them back into the same place, but using Edit | Paste Special... (or right-click | Paste Special... or Ctrl+Shift+V) instead of ordinary Paste. In the Paste Special dialogue, remove the tick from "Paste all" if necessary and then ensure that Numbers is ticked but Formulas is *not* ticked.
I trust this helps. Brian Barker --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
