Excel Help - sorting dates

[rokerexile]

I am trying to sort some data in excel by dates (dd/mm/yyyy) but it is just looking at the dd bit and not sorting by the date as a whole. For example, if I have a date of 13/02/1834 and a date of 20/03/1776 and I want to sort by earliest date first I get the wrong result because 13 is earlier than 20 and it ignores the rest. Anybody know how to solve this, I'm a bit rusty with Excel?

[MissRobinson]

Is the data formatted as a date ?

[rokerexile]

Originally Posted by MissRobinson

Is the data formatted as a date ?

Yep.

[Wilfy]

Excel is for geeks, what font are you using?

[MissRobinson]

Got no idea then - feel like I'm let myself down as I love excel me

[Wilfy]

Originally Posted by MissRobinson

Got no idea then - feel like I'm let myself down as I love excel me

Saddo!

[rokerexile]

What possible difference can the font make?

Originally Posted by Metalheed

Highlight the colum
go to data - sort
then options - make sure the key is set to normal.

then highlight the colum - and then data - sort
should do it

No. Same result.

[Flavonoids]

Originally Posted by rokerexile

What possible difference can the font make?

A lot of them didn't exist between 1776 and 1834.

[Paddy O'Dors]

Format the date so it writes as 01 January 2011 etc, then go to sort/filter then customs sort then order and select jan,feb,mar etc?

[AndrewP]

Are you really using dates before 1900? If so, I don't think it'll work.

Possible workaround here

http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/xdate.htm