Microsoft Excel enables you to manipulate data in numerous ways. It can be easily sorted and formatted, but you can also work with formulas, graphs, and whatnot. One thing a lot of users are interested in is how to sort data in rows in Excel.
Excel’s default settings make the app work with columns when it comes to sorting. However, you can also sort data in rows in Excel, and it’s quite easy to do it.
How to sort data in rows in Excel
Open an existing Excel file or create a new one and enter your data.
Select the Data tab on the ribbon then click the Sort button. In the new window, click on Options.
A small window will be displayed. The default orientation is set to “sort top to bottom” – as I already mentioned, Excel’s default sorting behavior is to work with columns, not rows.
To work with rows, you will need to select “sort left to right”.
Now you will need to select the row you want to sort in the ‘Row’ column, and how you want it sorted in the ‘Order’ row. Excel allows you to sort data by cell color, value, cell icon and font color.
Once you’ve made your selections, hit the OK button and your data will be sorted according to your specifications.
Keep in mind that Excel won’t remember the “Sort left to right” option and will return to the default “Sort top to bottom” value. For this reason, you will need to reselect “Sort left to right” every time you want to sort data in rows.
Also, if you ever need to apply a filter to rows, you will need to turn them into columns using the transpose feature – this is just one of Excel’s limitations for which there is no other workaround.
