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Excel -- Sorting Data -- Programming

Sort With Invisible Rectangles

 

Sort With Invisible Rectangles

Thanks to Dave Peterson, who wrote this technique.

To make sorting easier for users, and to help prevent scrambled data, you can add invisible rectangles at the top of your columns. When a rectangle is clicked, the whole data range is selected, and the data is sorted by the column in which the rectangle was clicked. The zipped sample workbook can be downloaded here: SortClick.zip

Create the rectangles

Run the following code once, to create the rectangles at the top of the table. You can change the iCol variable, to match the number of columns in your table.

To run the code, copy it to a regular code module, then in Excel, choose Tools | Macro | Macros. Select the SetupOneTime macro, and click the Run button..

Sub SetupOneTime()

'adds rectangle at top of each column
'code written by Dave Peterson 2005-10-22
  Dim myRng As Range
  Dim myCell As Range
  Dim curWks As Worksheet
  Dim myRect As Shape
  Dim iCol As Integer
  iCol = 10  '10 columns -- change this to the number of 
                   'columns in your table

  Set curWks = ActiveSheet

  With curWks
      
    Set myRng = .Range("a1").Resize(1, iCol)
    For Each myCell In myRng.Cells
        With myCell
          Set myRect = .Parent.Shapes.AddShape _
              (Type:=msoShapeRectangle, _
              Top:=.Top, Height:=.Height, _
              Width:=.Width, Left:=.Left)
        End With
        With myRect
          .OnAction = ThisWorkbook.Name & "!SortTable"
          .Fill.Visible = False
          .Line.Visible = False
        End With
    Next myCell
  End With
End Sub

SortTable Procedure

The following code runs when one of the rectangles is clicked. You can change the TopRow, iCol and strCol variables, to match the layout of your table.

Sub SortTable()
  'code written by Dave Peterson 2005-10-22
  '2006-08-06 updated to accommodate hidden rows
  Dim myTable As Range
  Dim myColToSort As Long
  Dim curWks As Worksheet
  Dim mySortOrder As Long
  Dim FirstRow As Long
  Dim TopRow As Long
  Dim LastRow As Long
  Dim iCol As Integer
  Dim strCol As String
  Dim rng As Range
  Dim rngF As Range

  TopRow = 1
  iCol = 10  'number of columns in the table
  strCol = "A"  ' column to check for last row

  Set curWks = ActiveSheet

  With curWks
    LastRow = .Cells(.Rows.Count, strCol).End(xlUp).Row
    If Not .AutoFilterMode Then
        Set rng = .Range(.Cells(TopRow, strCol), _
                .Cells(LastRow, strCol))
    Else
        Set rng = .AutoFilter.Range
    End If
    
    Set rngF = Nothing
    On Error Resume Next
    With rng
       'visible cells in first column of range
       Set rngF = .Offset(1, 0).Resize(.Rows.Count - 1, 1) _
           .SpecialCells(xlCellTypeVisible)
    End With
    On Error GoTo 0
    
    If rngF Is Nothing Then
         MsgBox "No visible rows. Please try again."
         Exit Sub
    Else
         FirstRow = rngF(1).Row
    End If
        
    myColToSort = .Shapes(Application.Caller).TopLeftCell.Column
    
    Set myTable = .Range("A" & TopRow & ":A" _
            & LastRow).Resize(, iCol)
    If .Cells(FirstRow, myColToSort).Value _
      < .Cells(LastRow, myColToSort).Value Then
        mySortOrder = xlDescending
    Else
        mySortOrder = xlAscending
    End If
    
    myTable.Sort key1:=.Cells(FirstRow, myColToSort), _
              order1:=mySortOrder, _
              header:=xlYes
  End With

End Sub

 

1. Sorting Data -- Basics
2. Sorting Data -- Programming

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Last updated: September 6, 2008 10:12 PM