Forum Discussion

Copper Contributor

Apr 06, 2019

Sorting with a Custom List Bug

I need to sort grades in order, e.g., A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, etc. Normal sort places has the order B, B-, B+, and using the custom list with the grades in perfect order results in, A-, B+, ...

excel

Excel on Mac

SergeiBaklan

Diamond Contributor

Apr 06, 2019

Chazzs , on Windows it sorts correctly if add custom list from from File->Options->Advanced (imported from column E here)

Perhaps something similar for Mac, not sure

Chazzs

Copper Contributor

Apr 06, 2019

SergeiBaklan

Thanks Sergei. I did a little more investigating. When I TYPE in random grades and sort with a custom list it's correct, but when I copy and past a list of grades off of a website the sorting is incorrect. Something is being copied from the webpage that is confusing the sorting. I'll see if I can save it as a text file and then try a new sort. Interesting.

Chazzs

Chazzs
Copper Contributor
Apr 06, 2019
SOLVED!!!!!
When a table is copied from a webpage it needs to be Paste Special as Unicode Text. This strips whatever malicious formatting is hiding in each cell, and now can be sorted correctly with a custom list. Whew.

Chazzs
- SergeiBaklan
  Diamond Contributor
  Apr 06, 2019
  Chazzs , yes, when you just copy/paste from web, quite often you copy with your data invisible characters from HTML code which you shall to remove after that.
  
  Anyway, so far so good.