Why am I unable to sort data in Excel?

Here is what my spreadsheet looks like:

I am trying to sort these invoices first by type (Column B) then date, and finally by amount (which shouldn't apply, but why not).

I have checked for filters.

I have checked for blanks.

I have checked to make sure I can edit.

I have checked to make sure that the format of all cells is Text.

I've tried to just sort Column B by itself, but even that won't work.

I'm truly stumped by this! I'll be happy to send the file to those who might be able to help. I'm sure there must be an easy fix; I just don't know what!

Solution 1:

Unsure if you ever got this resolved since it has been four years since you posted, but I also had the same issue. Eventually I was able to resolve my issue by selecting all the columns (at least the columns that held data, in this case columns A to F) and then sorting via the column that I needed to sort (column F from largest to smallest). Prior I was only selecting that one column that needed to be sorted (column F only) which made no changes at all.

Solution 2:

@Excellll had it right in the comments: Your data is grouped and you are trying to sort data both inside and outside of that group. Ungrouping everything or only sorting within the group works fine.

Investigation Step 1: I recreated your data and tried to sort it. (Aside: Your dates are stored as text so I stored mine as text, meaning there was another dialog window after the sort window.)

The sort did nothing. No error message, no change in the data order despite expecting it to change because the data is not already sorted as desired.

Investigation Step 2: Try to sort just the data inside the group (rows 2-12).

This succeeded.

Investigation Step 3: Ungroup all the rows and try again.

This also succeeded.