I'm only trying to sort 3 terms! Why doesn't it work??

languagedan · Newbie Joined: 12 Feb 2009 Posts: 4

I can't figure this out for the life of me. Already spent an hour on this simple problem!

I open a new spreadsheet and copy/paste these values into the A column:
Arabic
Japanese
Chinese

I sort Descending, and get:
Arabic
Japanese
Chinese

Why doesn't Arabic get sorted?? I've tried sorting with the buttons, through the Data > Sort.. menu, selecting and deselecting every option, with no good results. Tried it in MS Office, and the sort worked as expected.

My sample data is a simplified version of a long list of 31 languages.

Thanks in advance!

--Daniel[/list]

ken johnson · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 4:16 pm Post subject:

Calc is probably treating "Arabic" as a label.
If this is the case then after going Data|Sort, which brings up the "Sort" dialog, click on that dialog's "Options" tab then deselect "Range contains column labels".

Ken Johnson
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languagedan · Newbie Joined: 12 Feb 2009 Posts: 4

Ok, figured it out. The problem is that every time I de-selected "Range contains column labels", then resorted using the toolbar buttons, "Range contains column labels" would get selected again on it's own!

Why?? If I de-select it, it should stay deselected until I select it again myself. So much needless suffering. Hope this can be fixed someday.

My version of OOO is 3.1.1 on Windows XP.

Thx.

-Daniel

Villeroy · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:18 am Post subject:

Select the range.
Data>Define...
Give a name to your range and check the column label option.
Data>Sort will keep all settings.
Data>Refresh will sort the modified range in one step.
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