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How to quickly sort rows to match another column in Excel?

doc sort match to another column 1
If you have two lists in a sheet, and both of them have same values but in different order, how can you sort one list to match another list as below screenshot shown? In this article, I will introduce a formula to help you quickly solve it in Excel.
Sort rows to match another column

arrow blue right bubble Sort rows to match another column

To sort rows to match another column, here is a formula can help you.

1. Select a blank cell next to the column you want to resort, for instance B1, and then enter this formula =MATCH(A1,C:C,FALSE), and drag autofill handle down to apply this formula. See screenshot:
doc sort match to another column 2

Tip: C:C is the column you want to resort based on, and A1 is the first cell of the column you want to sort.

2. And then a list of numbers are displaying in the formula cells. Select the list you want to resort and the numbers list, and click Data > Sort. See screenshot:
doc sort match to another column 3

3. And in the Sort dialog, select the column which contains the formulas from Column drop down list, and select Values and Smallest to Largest from the Sort On and Order drop down lists separately. See screenshot:
doc sort match to another column 4

4. Click OK. And the column A is sorted to match column C.
doc sort match to another column 5

Tip: You can delete the formula column after sorting if you do not need it any more.

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Comments (25)
Rated 4.25 out of 5 · 2 ratings
Rob
Rob
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Gracias, me ahorraste horas de trabajo y aprendí algo nuevo.
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Rated 5 out of 5
Manu k R
Manu k R
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Sorting data in rows to match respective column headers in excel.

A B C D E
---------
D
A C
C E
B D E
E
What I want it to look like:

A B C D E
---------
D
A C
C E
B D E
E
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0
Manu k R
Manu k R
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What it looks like:

A B C D E
---------
D
A C
C E
B D E
E
What I want it to look like:

A B C D E
---------
D
A C
C E
B D E
E

can we do this in Excel?
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0
Rated 3.5 out of 5
JOAT
JOAT
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Annn the formatting for that comment broke.

It would re-order it to:
0230
...........0231
...........0234
0236 0236
...........0240
0241
............0245
0250 0250
............0251

Is what I meant by insert empty cells as needed in each column
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JOAT
JOAT
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A lot of people are asking this question (on a 4 year old post) but I haven't found an answer.

I have 4 unique columns of time stamps from 4 sources. Not all the time stamps match up. I might have 0230, 0236, 0241, 0250 in one column and 0231, 0234, 0236, 0240, 0245, 0250, 0251 in another column. Is there away to have excel match the columns and insert empty cells as needed?
So instead of:
0230 0231
0236 0234
0241 0236 etc

It would re-order it to:
0230
0231
0234
0236 0236
0240
0241
0245
0250 0250
0251

I have about 13,000 rows I need to do this to across 4 columns so adding by hand or inserting rows is not feasible.
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Sunny
Sunny     JOAT
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Hi, JOAT, you can use this formula:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(G1,$I$1:$I$8,1,FALSE)
See screenshot:
https://www.extendoffice.com/images/stories/comments/sun-comment/doc-lookup-formula-1.png
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John
John
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Hi, Great article!
I am wondering. If in the example above, column A does not have the value G2, this means that the sorting operation will be out of sync; 1,3,4,5,6,7,8. (missing a match for G2 on row index 2). Assuming that we want the rest of the data to line up, how can we resolve this without manually changing each line?
Is it possible to displace column A and use column B as a row index instead?
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vicky
vicky
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1 52 63 14 2 HOW CAN above two column data sort same data in one row
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FRANK
FRANK
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It doesn't help if the info is not exactly the same in both columns eg. column 1 has C,D,B, A and column 2 has B,D,C,A,G,R,T,H. When sorting column A to match column B, they won't match up. Any solution for this?
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Sunny
Sunny     FRANK
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Sorry, the method only work while two columns have same numuber rows and same data but in different order.
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Sujith
Sujith     Sunny
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Please share some way to sort if the info is not exactly the same in both columns eg. column 1 has C,D,B, A and column 2 has B,D,C,A,G,R,T,H.
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Daniella
Daniella     Sujith
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Hey Sujith,

Did you find a solution because I have this exact problem. Please help
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Mark Henry H Atwood
Mark Henry H Atwood     Daniella
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Daniella/Sujith,
How would the unique members of the resorted column be ordered? If they are numeric or alpha entries, then the ordering is simple; otherwise, it is less intuitive. May be easiest to isolate the 1-1 matching rows between the ref column and subject column, apply the ordering approach detailed above on that subset, then utilize a custom sort on the entire column as a final step. All of this is highly dependent on what type of data you have and ordering you expect to achieve.
-MH
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Ananya
Ananya
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Thanks a lot for this post.. made my work a lot easier :)
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Kishore
Kishore
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Anyone can help how to sort like below:

Column A is having and column B is having

1 1

1 2

2 1

2 2

But I need both column as


1

1

2

2
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Sunny
Sunny     Kishore
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I do not understand your problem, can you give me more details?
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