Last updated on May 1st, 2023 at 10:29 am
Arbitrarily searching for data in Microsoft Excel 2010 can be very time consuming, especially when the fields that you need to locate are not listed anywhere near each other. Fortunately you can easily sort data in Excel by ascending or descending values to make it easier to locate the data you need. This sorting method is not limited to numbers or test, however. You can take advantage of the ascending or descending sort options for cells that contain dates as well. So, for example, if you had a spreadsheet that listed employees by their last name, you could select a “date of hire” field and choose to sort based on that data instead, allowing you to see who your oldest or newest employees were. So continue reading below to learn how to sort by date in Excel 2010.
Sorting by Date in Excel
Note that you will be asked if you want to expand your selection to include all of the data on that row. You probably want to do this so that the rest of the information in the row is sorted along with the date column. So, with that in mind, follow the steps in the tutorial to learn how to sort a column by date in excel 2010.
Step 1: Open your spreadsheet in Excel 2010.
Step 2: Use your mouse to highlight the cells containing the dates that you want to sort.
Step 3: Click the Data tab at the top of the window.
Step 4: Click the Sort Oldest to Newest or the Newest to Oldest button in the Sort & Filter section of the ribbon.
Step 5: Click the Expand the selection option, then click Sort to make sure that the related data in the adjoining cells is also moved when your data is sorted.
There are a lot of helpful other things that can make your Excel experience easier, including the ability to fit all of your columns on one page when you are printing.
Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.
His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.
