Excel - Sort by 2 columns

[Ranboze]

Am having trouble sorting by one column then by another (Office 97):
Column 1: Song Title
Column 2: Genre

I select a cell in either column, click Data>Sort; then select Song Title in the Sort by box; then select Genre in the Then by box. Both are in ascending order.

Song Title column sorts alphabetically correct
Genre groups the genres together but they are not in alphabetical order; e.g., I want all the country western songs sorted together alphabetically; all the ballads sorted togheter alphabetically etc...

Am I missing something? thanx

 

[billswitzer]

When I use Excel to do the type of sort you want it is necessary to use a 2 step approach. Sort the entire file into the major catagories then highlight a major catagories and do the second sort. It will be necessary to sort each catagory the second time. You will then end up with the sort you want to acheive. Additional sorts after the first only sort the identical labels or values grouped by the first sort. If all of one type of music in the file was by the same artist then your approach would work but since it won't be, there is little benefit from the second catagory in the inital sort. I usually add a consecetively numbered column after I have completed this type of sort. That way later when I have worked with the data and probably changed the order I can do a single sort on the numbers and have the orininal sort order restored. I call this my "string of pearls"