Sort hidden columns

[SaraR]

Hi,
I just attended a webinar and thought of a question about 10 minutes after it was over. After you hide columns, how do you make sure they are still included when you sort the rest of your sheet?

We have lists of employees with their titles, office, hire date, ID number, etc. It is customary in our company to hide the ID number on documents. Then, somewhere down the line, someone sorts by the hire date or title, and the ID numbers don't sort correctly. You can imagine the trouble when we come back to those documents later and try to do a vlookup on ID number! How do we fix that? Is there any other option besides unhiding columns, sorting, then re-hiding?

 

[mvptomlinson]

A quick way is to select your whole worksheet before sorting. Click the small box to the left of column header "A", just above row header "1". That will select all columns, hidden or not, and you can then sort safely.