Knowledge Base

XL97: Hyphens and Apostrophes Are Sorted After Alphabetic Letters

PSS ID Number: 168234

Article Last Modified on 10/22/2000

The information in this article applies to:

This article was previously published under Q168234

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Excel 97, the hyphen character (-) and the apostrophe character (') are ignored when you perform a sort. The "Default sort orders" Help topic in Microsoft Excel Help states that the apostrophe character and the hyphen character are sorted before any alphabetic characters. This information is incorrect.

MORE INFORMATION

This sorting behavior is new in Microsoft Excel 97. As a result of the new sorting behavior, you may experience one or more of the following problems:

  • Cell entries containing hyphens and apostrophes may be sorted differently than they were in earlier versions of Excel.
  • When you compare the relative values of two text strings, you may receive a different answer than you do in earlier versions of Excel.
  • The VLOOKUP function may return a different value than it does in earlier versions of Microsoft Excel.
This sort order behavior is designed be consistent with Microsoft Windows. Sorting in Microsoft Word 97 also ignores the apostrophe character and the hyphen character. The sort order in Microsoft Word 7.0 does not do this.

REFERENCES

For more information about sorting, click the Index tab in Microsoft Excel 97 Help, type the following text

sorting, overview

and then double-click the selected text to go to the "Sort a list" topic.

Additional query words: XL97 dash

Keywords: KB168234
Technology: kbExcel97Search kbExcelSearch kbExcelWinSearch kbZNotKeyword3


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