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How to sort a table in Microsoft Word
You’ve created a table in your Microsoft Word document. Over time you’ve slowly added new lines, columns and editing your table to perfection.
Once you have inserted all of your desired content into the table, its a good idea to arrange it into some sort of order, making the table easy for your readers to navigate and understand. Yes, you can re-arrange each line manually using cut > paste if you are working on a table with more than a few lines this can become a very manual and time-consuming task.
Lucky for us, in Microsoft Word, you can sort and organise the contents of your table at the click of a button.
Whether that be the whole table, just a section, sorting by column or by line there is a customisation to suit everyone.
In this post, we will show you how to rearrange the contents of a table in Microsoft Word like a pro.
Sorting the contents of a table in Microsoft Word
- Open Word
- Select the Table
- Click Layout
- Select Sort
- In the dialogue box, select how you would like to sort the table
- Here you can select which column to sort by, how you would like the column sorted – Ascending or Descending order
- You can also select a secondary sorting order under ‘Then By’. In doing so, Word will sort by the first preference say Column 2, then by your second order
- Press OK
You have now successfully sorted your Microsoft Word table.
It’s worth noting here that if you edit any of the text or columns in your table, Word will not automatically re-sort your table. After each edit, you will need to repeat the steps above to re-sort your table before finalising the document.
Happy sorting!
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It’s a frustration we all know too well. When you are working on the 15th version of the same document, accepting and rejecting comments and changes. Knowing in the back of your mind that this won’t even be the last round of edits.
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While two colleagues unknowingly open the latest version at the same time, make their edits and press save. Now you’re left with two separate versions of the same document and no way to merge them together without manually making the changes yourself.
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