In this tutorial, you will learn how to arrange numbers in ascending order in Google Sheets.
When working in Google Sheets it’s likely you’ll come across situations where you want to arrange numbers or other data in ascending order. While you could manually arrange your data by copying and pasting numbers or moving rows around, this would be time consuming and prone to error. Fortunately Google Sheets has a feature that allows you to arrange numbers in ascending order in just a few clicks. Read on to learn how.
Simple Range Sort
If you want to sort or arrange a range by the values in the first column of that range, you can use the simple range sorting option by following these steps:
Step 1
Select the range you want to sort. It’s ok if the range includes headers
Step 2
Open the Data menu, hover over Sort Range and choose Sort Range by Column A (A to Z). By selecting the A to Z option, you’re choosing to sort in ascending order. Use Z to A if you want to sort in descending order instead
Step 3
The rows in your range will be sorted in ascending order based on values in the first column
Advanced Range Sort
If you want to sort a range based on a column other than the first, follow these steps:
Step 1
Select the range and open the Data menu, hover over Sort Range and choose Advanced Range Sorting Options
Step 2
In the popup that appears, check the Data Has Header Row box if you included a header row
Step 3
Choose the column you want to sort by from the dropdown. If headers are included in the selection, the list will contain the headers, otherwise it will contain the column letters
Step 4
Ensure the A – Z option is selected to sort in ascending order, then click on Sort to sort the range
Sheet Sort
In addition to sorting a range in Google Sheets, you can also sort an entire sheet by data in a specific column
Here’s how:
Step 1
Select the column you want to sort by, then open the Data menu, hover over Sort Sheet and choose the A-Z sorting option to sort in ascending order
Step 2
All columns in the current sheet will be sorted by the values in the selected column
Summary
Example Spreadsheet: Make a copy of the example spreadsheet
In this tutorial, I covered how to arrange numbers in ascending order in Google Sheets. Want more? Check out all the Google Sheets Tutorials.