Excel Forum

How to prevent a table (or a worksheet) from sorting (and that's it)

Scotty81

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September 7, 2019 - 12:56 am

I have a simple Excel table that I need to prevent from resorting. I still need to be able to filter and enter data on it. I thought I could unlock cells and then protect the worksheet and just uncheck sorting from the protect worksheet menu, but that seems to cause Excel to be unresponsive. I thought that would be straight forward, but not really finding what I want from a Google search. I also don't think it's an issue because I have a table; I think it is an issue even if it wasn't present either.

Is this easily doable without VBA? If VBA is required, that's OK too.

Mynda Treacy

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September 8, 2019 - 10:01 am

Hi Scotty,

If you have Excel 2013 or later you can use Slicers with Tables for filtering. You can then turn off the Filter buttons on the Table header to reduce the likelihood of it being sorted via those buttons, but you can't use protection as this also prevents the Table automatically expanding.

You could always add an Index column that numbers the rows in the order you want to retain, then if someone does sort it you can sort it back to its original state using the Index column.

Your only other option I can think of is to use VBA.

Mynda

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