Range.SortSpecial Method (Excel)

Uses East Asian sorting methods to sort the range, a PivotTable report, or uses the method for the active region if the range contains only one cell. For example, Japanese sorts in the order of the Kana syllabary.

Syntax

expression .SortSpecial(SortMethod, Key1, Order1, Type, Key2, Order2, Key3, Order3, Header, OrderCustom, MatchCase, Orientation, DataOption1, DataOption2, DataOption3)

expression A variable that represents a Range object.

Parameters

Name

Required/Optional

Data Type

Description

SortMethod

Optional

XlSortMethod

The type of sort. Some of these constants may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you’ve selected or installed.

Key1

Optional

Variant

The first sort field, as either text (a PivotTable field or range name) or a Range object ("Dept" or Cells(1, 1), for example).

Order1

Optional

XlSortOrder

The sort order for the field or range specified in the Key1 argument.

Type

Optional

Variant

Specifies which elements are to be sorted. Use this argument only when sorting PivotTable reports.

Key2

Optional

Variant

The second sort field, as either text (a PivotTable field or range name) or a Range object. If you omit this argument, there’s no second sort field. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

Order2

Optional

XlSortOrder

The sort order for the field or range specified in the Key2 argument. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

Key3

Optional

Variant

The third sort field, as either text (a range name) or a Range object. If you omit this argument, there’s no third sort field. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

Order3

Optional

XlSortOrder

The sort order for the field or range specified in the Key3 argument. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

Header

Optional

XlYesNoGuess

Specifies whether or not the first row contains headers. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

OrderCustom

Optional

Variant

This argument is a one-based integer offset to the list of custom sort orders. If you omit OrderCustom, (normal sort order) is used.

MatchCase

Optional

Variant

True to do a case-sensitive sort; False to do a sort that’s not case sensitive. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

Orientation

Optional

XlSortOrientation

The sort orientation.

DataOption1

Optional

XlSortDataOption

Specifies how to sort text in Key1. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

DataOption2

Optional

XlSortDataOption

Specifies how to sort text in Key2. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

DataOption3

Optional

XlSortDataOption

Specifies how to sort text in Key3. Cannot be used when sorting PivotTable reports.

Return Value

Variant

Remarks

If no arguments are defined with the Sort method, Microsoft Excel will sort the selection, chosen to be sorted, in ascending order.

Example

This example sorts the range A1:A5 using Pin Yin (phonetic Chinese sort order for characters). In order to sort Chinese characters, this example assumes the user has Chinese language support for Microsoft Excel. Even without Chinese language support, Excel will default to sorting any numbers placed within the specified range for this example. This example assumes there is data contained in the range A1:A5.

Sub SpecialSort() 
 
 Application.Range("A1:A5").SortSpecial SortMethod:=xlPinYin 
 
End Sub

See Also

Concepts

Range Object Members

Range Object