MVP #71: Multi-level Sorting In Excel

Excel can let you sort your table in multiple levels. It's a little difficult to explain without showing you. So I have made a sample data we can all relate with.

It is the result of our last year election (fictitious data as usual). 

The results are arranged by State and Wards.

So what if you want to sort it such that the states will show alphabetically and the wards in each state will also show alphabetically. For example, Abia state will show first, and all the wards under it arranged from A to Z before we move to Adamawa state.

To achieve this, we'll need to do multi-level sorting.

I'll select the entire table and click on Sort & Filter, then Custom Sort.

The Sort dialog box comes up. I add one more level by clicking "Add Level".

I, then, specify that I want to sort by State first and then Wards.

I click on OK.

And below is the final result.

Notice that Abia state comes before Adamawa and all the wards in Abia state are arranged alphabetically.

And that's how you do multi-level sorting in Excel.