Sorting by DOB (MM/DD/YYY) in Excel (2008)

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Sorting by DOB (MM/DD/YYY) in Excel (2008)

This post is not specifically relevant to Numbers but, I am trying to sort DOB (MM/DD/YYYY) on Excel, Microsoft 2008 for mac. I would like to sort first by YYYY, then by MM and lastly DD. The DOB is NOT separated by columns; they're all in one column. I am able to do this on Microsoft on a PC but the mac version doesn't seem to have this option. Could anyone please advise on how to sort? The sorting option allows me to sort by MM only (because of the MM/DD/YYYY formatting) in ascending or descending order.

I would prefer not to change the international Language settings in my System Preferences (as I've seen in a couple of forums) but if it's the only way, I'll be fine with that.

I'm currently on a MacBook 2007, running Snow Leopard, OSX 10.6.8.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jun 1, 2015 1:01 PM

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Answer 1

SGIII

Level 8

35,288 points

Jun 1, 2015 2:14 PM in response to lljiang2

Don't know about 2008, but in Excel (and Numbers) you want to be sure the app recognizes the value as a date and not a string. In Excel, try selecting the cells and then Format > Cells and pick Date. With luck they will then sort as you expect.

SG

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Answer 2

lljiang2 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 1, 2015 6:39 PM in response to SGIII

Hi SGIII,

Thank you for your advice! I followed your directions and attempted to Sort by DOB but, unfortunately, Excel would not cooperate. The information appears in the following order:

7/8/2004

8/16/2006

8/21/2007

8/6/2009

8/8/2007

9/13/2008

9/17/2008

9/19/2003

9/21/2005

9/6/2006

I am attempting at least sort by YYYY first and from there, I can manage.

Macbook, OSX 10.6.8, Snow Leopard, using Excel 2008.

Thank you,

Linda

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Answer 3

SGIII

Level 8

35,288 points

Jun 1, 2015 6:53 PM in response to lljiang2

Hi Linda,

Maybe you should try the reformatting in Excel 2016 for Mac Preview (which you can download and use for free, for now).

And if you don't want to do that, you could extract the year into a separate Year column. To do that, if your dates are in column A you could use:

=RIGHT(A1,4) and copy down the column.

Then sort, first by the new Year column, and then by your original "Date" column.

And if you're still having trouble, try your luck in the various Excel forums.

SG

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Answer 4

jaxjason

Level 5

5,047 points

Jun 2, 2015 7:48 AM in response to SGIII

Just google the general subject "Sort by date in excel" forget about dob, thats just the kind of date you are interested in.

There are plenty of web pages that talk to the difficulties you might be having.

Jason

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