Actually it's getting us an extra character because it's including that space. So we'll do location of the space and we see it gets us the first name. So LEFT and then the first parameter is source-string, this, and then up until which character. So we'll do this First Name column here and we can use another string function called LEFT to get the characters to the left. Then we'll go and get the first name based on where that space is located. So we'll call this one Location of Space. If I were to copy that and put it here we can see it's in the fifth position for John Adams. That's where the space is, in the seventh position. So quote space followed by quote comma and then we'll look at what's in this column here and I'll put parentheses and we see we get the number 7. So I'm going to start here by hitting the equals key, so I'm entering in a formula, and now I'm going to use Find and the find function if we look here on the right under Text we'll see FIND and we can see that it's looking for the search-string and then the source-string. So we can figure out the location of the space using either the Find or Search command. Now the first step is to figure out where that space is. I happen to know I'm going to need a bunch of them. I can always delete them if I'm not using them. In fact I'm going to add a whole bunch of extra ones. So let's start by selecting this second column here and going to Table and then Add Column Before to add an extra column there. Right now it will make it easier for us to see each step and make modifications along the way. Instead we're going to break it up into steps using multiple extra columns. To do so takes a lot of work so we're not going to try to do it in one big formula. So we need to convert these names into that format. As a matter of fact we want to sort properly by last name comma first name and then middle name or middle initial after that. The names, unfortunately, are first name last name format and that's not good for sorting. We have a list here with some names and some data. You just have to use a lot of different functions and formulas in Numbers to get the job done. So it turns out if you have a list of names and then names aren't formatted last name comma first name like these names aren't then trying to sort them by last names can be really tough. There you could read more about it, join us, and get exclusive content. MacMost is brought to you thanks to a great group of more than 500 supporters. Today let me show you how to sort a list of names by last name even if the names aren't formatted that way.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |