Sorting Data in Microsoft Word

Most people seem to know that you can sort data in Microsoft Word, but don't know or remember how.

Simply select the data, and hit Table Sort. (Yes. Even if your data is not in a table.)

One of the most common reasons you'll get the error "Word found no valid records to sort"...

...is because your data has line breaks instead of carriage returns. Turn on your Show/Hide button to see what's breaking your lines.

The following shows line breaks instead of carriage returns.

If this is true with your data-which is often the case when copying from the web-you can use Find and Replace to replace the line breaks with carriage returns, as shown:

The Find what box contains a carat (^) and a lower-case letter L.

The Replace with box contains a carat (^) and a lower-case letter P.

Hit Replace All. Your data will now look like this.

You can learn other find/replace codes by hitting the More and Special buttons of the Find and Replace dialog.