Hello wonderful people who are going to help me figure this out...

I've got a massive list of contacts. They all have the organization name
first and are all separated by one empty line, but after that there is no
order or uniformity.

I need to alphabetize the list by organization name.

How can I accomplish this before my meeting tomorrow morning?

Copy the worksheet before you sort, in case you have to go back to the
original. If you sort ascending by the column containing the org names,
Excel will place your empty lines at the beginning or end, and you can
ignore them. While you're at it, you could also sort by the last and first
names of the people, so they would be in order within each group of org
names.

"Ryan" wrote in message
...
Hello wonderful people who are going to help me figure this out...

I've got a massive list of contacts. They all have the organization name
first and are all separated by one empty line, but after that there is no
order or uniformity.

I need to alphabetize the list by organization name.

How can I accomplish this before my meeting tomorrow morning?

The sorting feature is under Table | Sort, but the data doesn't need to be
in a table to sort it.

However, Word sorts by paragraph, so to sort by Organization Name and have
all the following data sort with it, you need to get all the data into one
paragraph that begins with organization name.

I assume that your doc goes something like this, where ¶ is a paragraph mark
in Word.

Organization Name¶
Data¶
data¶
data¶
¶
¶
Organization Name¶....

Use Find and Replace, and click on More, so you can use the Special menu to
tell Word to search for paragraphs, etc. Find two paragraph marks in a row
and Replace them with XXXXXX or other placeholder text that is nowhere in
your document.

Find a single paragraph mark and Replace it with a manual line Break.

Find your placeholder text XXXXXX and Replace it with a paragraph mark.

Use Table | Sort.

Hope that helps,

On 7/25/05 11:41 AM, "Ryan" wrote:

Hello wonderful people who are going to help me figure this out...

I've got a massive list of contacts. They all have the organization name
first and are all separated by one empty line, but after that there is no
order or uniformity.

I need to alphabetize the list by organization name.

How can I accomplish this before my meeting tomorrow morning?

--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan"
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 2:41 PM
Subject: Urgent Sorting Help


Hello wonderful people who are going to help me figure this out...

I've got a massive list of contacts. They all have the organization name
first and are all separated by one empty line, but after that there is no
order or uniformity.

I need to alphabetize the list by organization name.

How can I accomplish this before my meeting tomorrow morning?

There are only two options?
1) Wave you magic wand :-))
2) Roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Daiya's magic wand worked!

Thanks

"lostinspace" wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan"
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 2:41 PM
Subject: Urgent Sorting Help


Hello wonderful people who are going to help me figure this out...

I've got a massive list of contacts. They all have the organization name
first and are all separated by one empty line, but after that there is no
order or uniformity.

I need to alphabetize the list by organization name.

How can I accomplish this before my meeting tomorrow morning?

There are only two options?
1) Wave you magic wand :-))
2) Roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Glad to help.


On 7/25/05 12:31 PM, "Ryan" wrote:

Daiya's magic wand worked!

Thanks

"lostinspace" wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan"
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 2:41 PM
Subject: Urgent Sorting Help


Hello wonderful people who are going to help me figure this out...

I've got a massive list of contacts. They all have the organization name
first and are all separated by one empty line, but after that there is no
order or uniformity.

I need to alphabetize the list by organization name.

How can I accomplish this before my meeting tomorrow morning?

There are only two options?
1) Wave you magic wand :-))
2) Roll up your sleeves and get to work.

I find it works very well to replace *all* paragraph marks (^p) with line
breaks (^l), then replace two line breaks (^l^l) with a paragraph mark.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
.. .
The sorting feature is under Table | Sort, but the data doesn't need to be
in a table to sort it.

However, Word sorts by paragraph, so to sort by Organization Name and have
all the following data sort with it, you need to get all the data into one
paragraph that begins with organization name.

I assume that your doc goes something like this, where ¶ is a paragraph
mark
in Word.

Organization Name¶
Data¶
data¶
data¶
¶
¶
Organization Name¶....

Use Find and Replace, and click on More, so you can use the Special menu
to
tell Word to search for paragraphs, etc. Find two paragraph marks in a
row
and Replace them with XXXXXX or other placeholder text that is nowhere in
your document.

Find a single paragraph mark and Replace it with a manual line Break.

Find your placeholder text XXXXXX and Replace it with a paragraph mark.

Use Table | Sort.

Hope that helps,

On 7/25/05 11:41 AM, "Ryan" wrote:

Hello wonderful people who are going to help me figure this out...

I've got a massive list of contacts. They all have the organization
name
first and are all separated by one empty line, but after that there is
no
order or uniformity.

I need to alphabetize the list by organization name.

How can I accomplish this before my meeting tomorrow morning?

--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Ah. Had a feeling I had missed something.


On 7/25/05 3:45 PM, "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

I find it works very well to replace *all* paragraph marks (^p) with line
breaks (^l), then replace two line breaks (^l^l) with a paragraph mark.

--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

If I'm not mistaken that saves a step over your method (and also doesn't
require people to think of some alternative replacement character/text).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
.. .
Ah. Had a feeling I had missed something.


On 7/25/05 3:45 PM, "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

I find it works very well to replace *all* paragraph marks (^p) with
line
breaks (^l), then replace two line breaks (^l^l) with a paragraph mark.

--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/