Excel Help

[Yellefan]

Attention all excel experts! I have a bit of a problem that I can't seem to solve regarding sorting. I have been given 2 separate lists with a common column from 2 different people that I am trying to sort so that I can merge them together. The problem is that when I sort the 2 lists based on that column it sorts them both differently... eg:

List 1 List 2

1 1
2 10
3 11
4 12
. .
. .
. .
10 2
11 20

etc... you get the point. The columns are both formatted as numbers but for some reason I can't get that column to sort the same way in the 2 separate lists? What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: Sorry about the formatting above... it looked right as I was typing.

[Shawnski]

You may have the cells formatted as numbers, but Excel may still think they are text. It's actually one of my pet peaves with it!!

Text aligns left, numeric values align right.

What you can do to convert the "text" numbers is add a column, and for each cell that is suspected text format (i.e. B1), in the new column, enter (without the quotes) "=Value(B1)". Copy that new cell down the length of the new column, highlight all the "new" values, then copy, and paste special "values" into the old column.

Delete the "new" column and you are off to the races.

[nfotiu]

it looks like my version of excel gets a little green mark in the top left corner if it is a number being stored as text, and lets you right click and say change to number to fix.

Excel help also gives you this little hack to fix them. (similar to shawnski's, but maybe a little quicker)
In an empty cell, enter the number 1.
Select the cell, and on the Edit menu, click Copy.
Select the range of numbers stored as text you want to convert.
On the Edit menu, click Paste Special.
Under Operation, click Multiply.
Click OK.
Delete the content of the cell entered in the first step.

[Yellefan]

Thanks for the tips, I will give them a shot and let you know how it goes...

[Yellefan]

Worked like a charm... annoying feature since both appeared to be the same in cell properties, but obviously not. Oh well thanks again!

[alfredothegiant]

The easiest way I've found to format by number is to Highlight the column and select:

Data
Text to columns
finish