How to arrange names in alphabetical order in google sheets

Whether you're calculating your monthly household budget or cataloging your Pokémon collection, spreadsheets are an invaluable tool for organizing and manipulating data. For decades, spreadsheets were the domain of businesspeople and accountants via often-expensive software packages (we're looking at you, Microsoft Office). Thankfully, as people who own Chromebooks are well aware, there’s Google Sheets can sub for Excel for all but the most intensive tasks

Spreadsheets are awesome, and you've probably used Microsoft Excel at least once in your schooling. In case you're out of practice, the thing that sets a spreadsheet apart in your typical productivity suite of software is its ability to organize and manipulate data. To cover all the ways you can manipulate data in Google Sheets, we would have to write a book. So instead, we're going to talk about ways to organize it quickly.

Sorting data with Google Sheets

When you're organizing data in Google Sheets, the first thing you need to know is which data you want to sort. When sorting Pokémon, maybe you want to sort by the Pokémon number. If you're sorting your CD collection, you might want to sort by the year it was released. If you're organizing a list of Android Police writers, you could sort by their last name. A simple sort like this can be done in a few clicks

Desktop

1. Select any cell in the row with the data you want to sort by.

2. Click Data from the menu at the top of the window.
3. Hover over Sort sheet from the drop-down menu.
4. Select either Sort sheet by column A (A to Z) or Sort sheet by column A (Z to A), depending on your needs.

Alternatively:

1. Select the column with the data you want to sort by.
2. Hover over the selected column head and click the triangle menu button.
3. From the drop-down menu, select either Sort sheet A to Z or Sort sheet Z to A.

Mobile

1. Select the column with data you want to sort by tapping the column header.
2. Tap the column header again to bring up a menu.
3. Touch the three-dot overflow menu. On iOS, you will see an arrow instead of a three-dot menu.
4. Select either Sort A-Z or Sort Z-A.

These sort options also work for numerical values. A to Z is analogous to sorting numbers from lowest to highest. Likewise, sorting from Z to A with numerical values arranges them from highest to lowest.

Advanced sorting with Google Sheets

Sometimes your sorting needs are simple and all you have to do is alphabetize a class roster or sort your monthly expenses from cheapest to most expensive. But other times, you'll need to do something more complex. Perhaps you're running a competition and want to sort by category first, and then sort by time within each category. Or maybe you want to sort a Pokedex by type and then sort each type alphabetically. Google Sheets can do it, and it won't even judge you.

1. Select the data you want to sort, not just the column with the data you want to sort by. Often, you can select the whole sheet.

2. Click Data from the menu at the top of the window.
3. Hover over Sort range from the drop-down menu.
4. Select Advanced range sorting options.

This opens a new overlay window that allows you to fine-tune your sort. In our case, we want to sort our Pokémon by their primary type, and then sort each type alphabetically based on the Pokémon's name. Here's how to get that done:

1. If you have a header row (in this case, we don't), check this box. Sheets ignores the top row of the spreadsheet when sorting.

2. Select which column you'd like to sort the data by. Pokémon type is in column C, so we'll select that one.

3. Select either A→Z or Z→A.

4. To sort within each type after the data is organized by type, click Add another sort column.

5. Repeat steps 2 and 3, but select the column that corresponds to the name of the Pokémon: B.
6. Click Sort.

Now that our lists of authors and Pokémon are sorted, there's a sort of anti-sort buried in Google Sheets' menus.

1. Select more than one cell from at least one row. For this example, we'll select columns A, B, C, and D.

2. Right-click anywhere over the selected cells. Alternatively, hover over any column heading and click the triangle menu button.
3. From the menu, hover over View more column actions, then select Randomize range.

4. Here's the result:

Now that your data is jumbled, you may have noticed that the rows were randomly shuffled around, not the individual cells. One thing to watch out for when using the Randomize range option is highlighting all the information you want to keep together. If we had only selected column B, the names of the Pokémon would have been shuffled without affecting the data in the other three columns.

So what is all this good for? That entirely depends on your use case. If you’re organizing a race, you might want an alphabetical list of all participants or you might want a list of the finishers from first to last. If you’re running a business, you might want to organize your data to see which employee had the highest sales on a given day.

Make your data work for you

The use cases for spreadsheets are endless, but one of the first things you have to master before getting any value out of them is how to organize information. If sorting is trivial for you, then you should step up your skills with these eight tips and tricks for Google Sheets.