Forum Discussion
Sorting tables that are in different sheets
What is definitely possible is that a different design in the first place would make all of this a LOT easier to accomplish. So let me ask you WHY you have so many sheets with essentially the same table layout(s) on each sheet?
Having asked the question, let me observe that it's a fairly common error in design for people new to Excel to try to make things clearer by, say, creating a separate page for the records of each month, or for each employee, or for each product line...thinking that would be clearer because it's clearer to us as humans. It's the way we did it when working with paper records.
The truth is, Excel is really good, REALLY GOOD, at taking a single database and parsing it out. All those months worth of data that have been carefully put into their own month's sheet...Excel can use a "Date" column to identify the ones that go with Jan, Feb, Mar and so on. And it's far easier, in the end, to let Excel do the heavy lifting which it is designed to do.
The implication of all of this is that my suggestion--when I read a question such as yours--is almost always to redesign so that all those essentially identical tables on all those separate sheets become a single table on a single sheet, with (if necessary) a single column that identifies the distinction that warranted making them separate tables.
Are you open to such a re-design? It will save you loads of pain in the long run.
mathetes Thank you for your answer!
The truth is that it's not possible for me to have fewer sheets. Let me explain why:
Basically, im working at radio company. Every sheet, represents the "position" of every radio station among every age group, depending on the percentage of their audience every hour.
I can't put them all together because you can understand that for example my radio station might be 2nd during 14:00-15:00 in the age group of 17-20, but in the 7th place during the same time in the age group of 25-30.
So my question remains the same. Can i sort at the same time different tables in different sheets?
You wrote:
The truth is that it's not possible for me to have fewer sheets. Let me explain why:
Basically, im working at radio company. Every sheet, represents the "position" of every radio station among every age group, depending on the percentage of their audience every hour.I can't put them all together because you can understand that for example my radio station might be 2nd during 14:00-15:00 in the age group of 17-20, but in the 7th place during the same time in the age group of 25-30.
So my question remains the same. Can i sort at the same time different tables in different sheets?
And my response remains the same too. If you were to add the necessary qualifiers to each row in what are now separate tables, you could combine them all into a single database and still do the kind of sorting and querying that you're describing. I've been the director of a major database of a major corporation...we had to sort populations from different divisions, different locations, etc., and did it all from a single database. The very fact that you're looking for help in the way you're looking for it, for that purpose, underscores the fact that the way you've organized it is INTERFERING with letting Excel do what it can do very well.
But have it your way.