Strange Sorting Problem - going from 2003 to 2010

[tbernhardt]

Hi All,

We got new computers in my office this month, and are now using Excel 2010. (had been using 2003)

2 of us a having a strange issue when we try to sort spreadsheets by date.

It sorts it by the month, then day, then year. (January is listed first, no matter what thet year is).

All other users sort correctly, just these 2 computers don't.

I can pull the same file up on the old computer & it sorts just fine.

The date does have the message "This cell contains a date string represented with only 2 digits for the year" ... all computers show that (old or new)

I couldn't see anything in settings that would point me in the right direction, so I thought I would shoot a signal flare off here.

Thanks to all !!!

 

[circledchicken]

Hi,

Perhaps try these steps and see if it helps:

• Highlight all the dates
• Go to the Data tab in the Ribbon
• Select Text to Columns
• Press Finish without changing anything
• Try sorting again...

 

[Jonmo1]

I would suspect the regional settings on the 2 problematic computers are different from the others..
One using MM/DD/YY and the other using DD/MM/YY

On a problematic PC,
Put this date in a cell, Say A1
4/8/12
Do you expect that to be April 8th, or August 4th?

Now put this in another cell
=TEXT(A1,"mmmm")
Did that return the month you expected?

 

[tbernhardt]

Thanks for the QUICK response jonmo1 !!

It returned what I expected ... April 4th

Any other thoughts ?

 

[Jonmo1]

Thanks for the QUICK response jonmo1 !!

It returned what I expected ... April 4th

Any other thoughts ?

I suppose I should have asked it this way...

Does it this
=TEXT(A1,"mmmm")
With 4/8/12 in A1
Return the SAME month on both a good PC and a problematic PC
?

 

[tbernhardt]

Yep ... the same on both