The spreadsheet consists of rows numbers, first number is the year they were born: 2025 the tag # starts with 5 followed by 01-175.
Example: 501, 502, 503 … 5100, 5101, 5102 …5175. How can I sort them numerically from 501-599, 5100, 5101, 5102 on up to 5175?
When it sorts the cow numbers it sorts. 501-510, 5100 – 5109, 511, 5110-5119, 512, 5120-5129, 513, 5130-5139, 514….
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Shannon
So you basically want alphabetical text sorting even though they are numbers. So tell Numbers those values are text, instead of numbers. Select the whole column. Go to the Format sidebar, choose Cell at the top, set the Data Format to "Text." You should note then that the numbers are left-justified since they aren't numbers anymore, but text. Then sort. Now the order would be 500, 5100, 520, etc...
It did not change the sort.
Shannon: Check everything carefully and make sure you do it all. It definitely works if you do it right.
Hi Gary, I just made a new spreadsheet, entered the numbers as described in original question as text and it still sorts: 901, 906, 909, 9105, 9106, 911, 9110 etc. is there a value that I need to add to the sort with the 4 digits after the 3 digits? My apologies, I don’t mean to argue but I am missing something. Thank you for your help
Shannon: No. If you follow everything in my original reply it should sort like you want.