Creating and Sorting Lists

In Excel 2003, you can define series of adjacent cells as a list. The list feature in Excel gives you access to a number of actions you may want to perform on the list of data. Some of these actions include sorting the list alphabetically, filtering the list by a field, displaying a "Total" row for the list, creating a chart from the list data, and printing the list.

To create and sort a list:

1. Select the cells to include in the list.
2. Click the Data menu, point to List, and select Create List...
3. Verify that the correct range of cells is displayed in the Where is the data for your list? box and click OK.
4. The List toolbar displays and the data appears with a blue and yellow border around it with Autofilter turned on.
5. Click the arrow at the top of a column and select Sort Ascending to sort the list alphabetically.

• When you first click the Toggle Total Row button on the List toolbar, a row displays at the bottom of your list with the word Total in the leftmost cell and a subtotal in the rightmost cell. Click any cell in the total row to display an arrow. Click this arrow to display a list of functions to apply to the data in that column.
• If your list contains multiple columns, filtering one column will filter the data in all the columns that are included in the list.
• You can define multiple lists in the same worksheet to help you manage distinct groups of data within your worksheet.

The List toolbar gives you access to all the commands for working with lists, including displaying row totals, creating a chart from a list, printing a list, and a menu of List commands.

• To create a list, you can also press + on the keyboard after selecting the data for the list.
• To sort a list, you can also select the cells you want to sort and then click the Sort Ascending button or Sort Descending button on the Standard toolbar.