Why can't Excel sort numerically?!

[charlesstricklin]

It's 2024. Excel is 40 years old. Microsoft has known about the problem for at least a decade. Why can't they make a sort to sort a numeric column properly??

1 is smaller than 10 or 11, and 10 or 11 are smaller than 110 and 111. It's not hard unless you tediously go through and add leading zeros or apply a formula to do so. Still, that's no excuse, Microsoft!

</rant>

Update: Belay my last, I did not look close enough before ranting. Sorry. Ignore.

 

[etaf]

thats only when it sees the items as TEXT and NOT numbers

 

[Joe4]

Yep, if you see that kind of sorting, it means that you have entered your numbers as text.
Excel has no problems sorting numbers that have been entered as numbers (never has been an issue).

Note that you can use Text to Columns to quickly convert any column of "numbers entered as text" to valid numbers, so your sorting will work properly.
Simply select the column, go to "Text to Columns" from the Data menu, and click the Finish button.
Just note that you have to do each column you want to convert separately using this method (one column at a time).