Sorting is easy, when the orientation of data is vertical.

Although we are expecting data in a vertical layout, it is not uncommon that we still encounter data in a horizontal layout in real world.  Don’t you?

With data in a row, such simple task as sorting could become a headache to many people as sorting seems not working properly…

Are you one of them?  Don’t worry.  It is totally doable.  What we need are just a few more clicks.

Go to Data –> Sort (not the sort ascending or descending icon) –> Options…

Select “Sort left to right” under Orientation –> OK

As simple as that, we can now sort by row instead of column.

Just like sorting by column, we could add more than one level of sorting.

Nevertheless, the checkbox “My data has headers” turns grey once “Sort left to right” is select.

If you include your “header” for sorting, you may get unexpected result as shown below:

To make the sorting right, DO NOT include the labels on the first column.

A more practical application is to sort a table by header. Watch this: