TL;DR version:
Can I use some kind of formula to convert a letter into a number, without using 28+ IF nestlings?
Not too long; did read version:
I have a bit of a problem. Namely, I have a quite large spreadsheet that has a total of 1 array formula in it. But, that array seems to be pulling teeth when it puts things in alphabetic order (and yes, that has to be automatically done)...
So, is there some way of numbering things by their alphabetic position with the use of formulas? Then I could use Offset/Match/Index or similar to get the entries ordered into their proper positions. But, I have no idea on how to check for just the first letter of a cell without having to do a IF() command for every single letter combination - needless to say, that means I run out of IF-nestlings ridiculously fast...
And I cannot use VBA for this, either. Blame the security settings on my computer.
(also, please note: The last three times someone said 'Nope, that's impossible' off the bat, it turned out that they just refused to think a bit out of the box, and that a solution could indeed be found with a bit of tinkering..)
Can I use some kind of formula to convert a letter into a number, without using 28+ IF nestlings?
Not too long; did read version:
I have a bit of a problem. Namely, I have a quite large spreadsheet that has a total of 1 array formula in it. But, that array seems to be pulling teeth when it puts things in alphabetic order (and yes, that has to be automatically done)...
So, is there some way of numbering things by their alphabetic position with the use of formulas? Then I could use Offset/Match/Index or similar to get the entries ordered into their proper positions. But, I have no idea on how to check for just the first letter of a cell without having to do a IF() command for every single letter combination - needless to say, that means I run out of IF-nestlings ridiculously fast...
And I cannot use VBA for this, either. Blame the security settings on my computer.
(also, please note: The last three times someone said 'Nope, that's impossible' off the bat, it turned out that they just refused to think a bit out of the box, and that a solution could indeed be found with a bit of tinkering..)