Forum Discussion

peteryac60's avatar
peteryac60
Iron Contributor
Sep 17, 2026

Filter selected columns in a specific order

Hi All,

 

If my source data contains 6 columns:

A B C D E F

and I want to FILTER 3 columns with the order being 

A F D    (i.e. not in the same sequence as the source)

It does seem to work.

I am suing the formula

FILTER(Source, Countif(HeaderRow,SourceHeaderRow))

where SourceHeaderRow is ABCDEF

and Header row is AFD

 

In other words, it seems to me that the FIltered data must be in the same sequence as the source data.

Can this be done.

Please note that I do not have access to CHOOSECOLUMN function.

 

I hope this makes sense! 

 

 

thank you in anticipation.

 

Peter

 

 

 

 

excel

2 Replies

  • IlirU's avatar
    IlirU
    Iron Contributor
    Sep 17, 2026

    Hi peteryac60​,

     

    If you have access to the SEQUENCE and ROWS functions, try this formula:

     

    =INDEX(A1:F10, SEQUENCE(ROWS(A1:F10)), {1,6,4})

     

    Note: Adjust the range in the formula according to your needs.

     

    HTH

    IlirU

    • peteryac60's avatar
      peteryac60
      Iron Contributor
      Sep 18, 2026

      Hi 

      Many thanks for your input - I am trying to get it to work but no luck so far.

      I think this is because I do not understand how Sequence evaluates the curly brackets i.e. {1,6,4}

      As I understand it the second parameter in Sequence is COLUMNS - not sure how it evaluates {1,6,4}

      Can you advise please?

       

      thank you!😀