Numbers 14.3 alphabetically sort entire table not working

It sounds like you want to sort each column individually. This is not how sorting works. Each row is like a database record. When you sort, the entire row moves to another row. 'Sort entire table" means "include every row of the table in the sort, except headers and footers". That is in contrast to sorting selected rows where only those rows get sorted and the other rows stay where they are.

To sort individual columns they need to be individual tables.

• You can split the table into individual tables
• You can easily drag a single column out of a table (which will make it a table by itself) and sort it by itself but it isn't as easy to drag it back into the table so that's probably not the best solution.
• If the table is only data, no formulas, you can copy/paste a column of it to a blank table, sort that table, copy/paste it back, then do the next columns the same way

BadUnit may be on to to something here...

When you sort any given column, that column is reorganized to be alphabetically or numerically sorted, but it maintains the same row relationship across all the columns.

For example, consider the following list of names and birthdays:

If I sort by Column B (Birthday), I get a chronological list of birthdays (year excepted)

If I sort by name, I can see all my friends alphabetically, which I'd expect:

but note that the birthdays have maintained their relative order with respect to the name - Allison's birthday is still October 1st. it would be fundamentally wrong for the dates not to move in this instance, since it would appear that Allison's birthday was January 21st (the previous first birthday in the list when sorted by date).

If this is what you're experiencing, it's normal and expected. Values in any given row are assumed to be intrinsically related to each other, and will move as the key fields are reordered.

To have it any other way requires separating out your data into separate rows and/or tables such that sorting one does not impact the others.

I can't replicate the problem - sorting seems to work as expected for me.

Without seeing your data it's hard to know what the problem might be.

The only thing that concerns me is the line:

> The entire table, not just a single column. I can sort one column, then when I sort the next column, the previously sorted column reverts to unsorted. I see Numbers has an organize button. There I can choose sort options "sort entire table". Great I thought! But nothing happe

If you sort by Column B then, almost by definition, the order of values in Column A are going to change because the table is now ordered by column B. That's why understanding your data is key