XL: Ignoring the Articles A, An, and The When Sorting Titles

ID: Q151447

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition
Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, versions 7.0, 7.0a
Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 5.0, 5.0c
Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, versions 5.0, 5.0a

SUMMARY

It is possible to sort titles in Microsoft Excel and ignore articles such as "A," "An," and "The" while sorting. Normally when sorting in Microsoft Excel, the entire contents of the cell are sorted. It is possible to work around this by creating a formula that ignores the articles.

MORE INFORMATION

When sorting lists that contain the titles of movies, records, or books, most people want to have the list sorted so that any of the initial articles, such as "A," "An," or "The" are ignored during the sort.

If a normal sort in Microsoft Excel is performed on the following data

A Kiss Before Dying
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
The Kissing Place
A Kid in King Arthur's Court
The Egg and I
Kentucky Blue
An Egg Named Ed

it would look as follows after the sort:

A Kid in King Arthur's Court
A Kiss Before Dying
An Egg Named Ed
Kentucky Blue
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
The Egg and I
The Kissing Place

To sort a list that contains titles that begin with one of the initial articles, follow these steps:

Enter the following data in a worksheet:
A1: Title
A2: A Kiss Before Dying
A3: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
A4: The Kissing Place
A5: A Kid in King Arthur's Court
A6: The Egg and I
A7: Kentucky Blue
A8: An Egg Named Ed

Type the following formula into the worksheet:
B2: =IF(LEFT(A2,2)="A ",RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-2),IF(LEFT(A2,3)= "An ",RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-3),IF(LEFT(A2,4)="The ",RIGHT(A2, LEN(A2)-4),A2)))

With cell B2 selected, grab the fill handle and fill the formula down through cell B8.

Click cell A3.

On the Data menu, click Sort. In the Sort By list, click Column B, and click OK.

The sorted data will now look like the following:
A1: Title
A2: The Egg and I
A3: An Egg Named Ed
A4: Kentucky Blue
A5: A Kid in King Arthur's Court
A6: A Kiss Before Dying
A7: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
A8: The Kissing Place

REFERENCES

Microsoft Excel 97

For more information about sorting data, click Contents And Index on the Help menu, click the Index tab in Excel Help, type the following text

sorting

and then double-click the selected text to go to the "sort a list" topic. If you are unable to find the information you need, ask the Office Assistant.

Microsoft Excel 7.0

For more information about sorting data in Microsoft Excel, click Answer Wizard on the Help menu and type:

sorting data

Microsoft Excel 5.0

For more information about sorting data in Microsoft Excel, click the Search button in Help and type:

sort

Additional query words: XL98 XL97 XL7 XL5

Keywords : xlformula xllist
Version : MACINTOSH:5.0,5.0a,98; WINDOWS:5.0,5.0c,7.0,7.0a,97
Platform : MACINTOSH WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto