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Excel - Data Sorting

ResolvedVersion 2003

Julie has attended:
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Excel - Data Sorting

Hi (me again),

I want to sort a list of numbers into pairs, i.e. £1,000 & -£1,000, £2,000 and -£2,000.

Basically, for each value I have a positive and negative which I want to keep together.

If I data sort by ascending I get all the negatives together followed by all the positives.

How can I sort my values into ascending order ignoring signage please?

Jules

RE: Excel - Data Sorting

Hi Julie
Thanks for your question.

This is fairly straightforward. Add an additional column, into which you place the ABS function. This returns the absolute value of a number, i.e. it removes the sign, so -200 becomes 200. You can then sort on this column.

Regards

Stephen

RE: Excel - Data Sorting

Thanks Stephen - now why didn't I think of that.

One more quick question if I may, when I do MATCH function, if there is no match a #N/A is returned. How can I return a text message such as "no match", instead of #N/A?

I have tried the following:

if(iserror(match(a2,a2:a100,0),"no match",match(a2,a2:a100,0))

Thanks Stephen.

Jules

Excel tip:

Use Paint Brush to Format More than one Cell

To copy a format to many cells or ranges

1. Select the cell with the format that you want to copy

2. Double-click on the paint brush

When you move to the cell where you want to paste the format you will notice that a paint brush follows the cursor.

Paste the format to all the cells or ranges you need to format.

When finished go back to the paint brush on the tool bar and single click on it to deactivate the function.

View all Excel hints and tips

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