Google Sheets Tip - Sorting By Multiple Columns

Today's Google Sheets Tip:

For those of us used to Excel (and yes, I should totally have an “I love spreadsheets” sticker on my car!!), moving to Google Sheets (or Libre Office) can be a bit of a change.

Google Sheets is probably about 80% the same, it is just those few things that get you - especially when they are hardwired in - talk about muscle memory!!

Today I ran across a new one - Sorting by Multiple Columns

For example, sorting by (1) Sales Person, then by (2) Territory, then by (3) Customer Name.

In Excel it is relatively easy, all the Sort functions are together.

To Sort in Sheets, you go to "Data - Sort by" and you can choose the column to sort by, which seems similar - but then you realize you can only sort by 1 column 🤔

To Sort using multiple columns you need to first “Select” the data, THEN go to “Data - Sort Range”

Then a box pops up and you can “Add Another Sort Column”

WHEW!!!

Again, not a huge deal and not really that much more work - just a slightly different method and one that is not necessarily obvious at first glance.

Happy Spreadsheeting!!