What it does
Have you ever sorted data and found it frustrating that you have to ensure you’re in the right block you want sorted, bring up the sort selection box from the menu, and choose which column you wish to sort by? Well there is a much easier way to do this, and that’s by using the Auto Filter option.
How to use it
This is the best bit. It’s quick and simple to set up and just as simple to use!
- Select the first cell of the block of data that you want to include:
- Click the Auto Filter button in the toolbar (or press CTRL-SHIFT-L):
- You will now see the column headers each have an arrow suggesting a dropdown box (Tip: If you press the icon again, the filter arrows will be removed and make your headers look nice again):
- Clicking one of the arrows will bring up a sorting box allowing you to quickly sort by that column:
And that’s all there is to it! You can now happily sort your data quickly and easily.
But what if you want more than one group of data that you want to sort, such as in the figure below?
You may think that you can just select the first cell of the second block of data and have two blocks that you can sort at the same time. Unfortunately this is not something that LibreOffice can do. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t sort each group of data. To get around this, you can just select the first cell of the block you wish to sort and click the Auto Filter icon to display the dropdown arrows. When you’re ready to sort the other group of data, just select the first cell of that group and press the icon again.
I think it is a bit of a clunky way to do it, but it’s quick and easy to do and doesn’t change the way your individual data blocks are sorted.