Sort Days of the Week

August 31, 2022 - by Bill Jelen

Problem: I have a column with values such as Monday, Wednesday, and so on. When I sort this column in ascending sequence, Friday comes before Monday. The same problem happens with month names, which sort as April, August, December, and so on.

If you sort by weekeday, it appears alphabetically: Friday, Monday, Saturday, and so on. — Figure 653. Friday is alphabetically before Monday.

Strategy: Excel has custom lists built in for months and days. To use them, follow these steps:

1. Select a cell in your data.
2. Select Data, Sort.
3. Choose Sort by Day and Sort on Values. In the Order dropdown, choose Custom List.
4. Choose Sunday, Monday, Tuesday from the Custom List dialog. Click OK.

Excel will sort the data correctly.

Using the Order dro-down menu in the Sort dialog, choose Custom List, and then choose the built-in list with Sunday, Monday, Tuesday... — Figure 654. Weekdays are sorted correctly.

This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel

Title photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash