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Sort multi column tables

I'm trying to alphabetically sort a small table, 15 rows, 3 columns. (no header) I've followed printed help articles I found searching the Office database but no luck in getting a successful sort.  I'm looking for column 1, then column 2 and finally column 3.  I've been very unsuccessful can anyone help?  Thanks.
Answer
Answer
As Stefan said, Word sorts tables by considering each row as a single piece, and sorting them by the contents of a particular column.

The way to get this as you want it is to convert the original table to plain text, sort that, and convert it back to a table:
  1. Click in the table. On the Table Tools | Layout tab, click Convert to Text.
  2. In the conversion dialog, select 'Paragraph marks' and click OK. You'll get all the cell contents as text, one cell per paragraph. That text will be selected automatically.
  3. On the Home tab, click the Sort button in the Paragraph group. (It's the one with A over Z and a downward arrow.) Leave the settings as is and click OK.
  4. On the Insert tab, click the Table button and click Convert Text to Table.
  5. In the conversion dialog, select 'Paragraphs' and set the number of columns to the original number. Click OK.

The sorted items will go across the row and then down. There is no simple way to get them to go down and then across, other than copying the table into Excel and using the transpose command.

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Last updated April 14, 2025 Views 4,167 Applies to: