Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Sorting Dates Numerically.
David experienced a problem when trying to sort dates in a table. His dates are in the format year.month.day, as in 10.12.24, 10.09.16, and 12.06.19. When he sorts the table by the dates, Word puts them in the order 12.06.19, 10.12.24, and 10.09.16.
This date order can be handled by Word automatically—in fact, it should be handled automatically, with very little intervention on your part. Follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Sort dialog box.
There are a couple of interesting things to note about sorting in this manner. It is best to choose a Date sort type, but you could also choose a Text sort type. Either method will work fine, provided the dates in the table are all in the current century. If the table also includes dates from the previous century, you should only choose the Date sort type.
The second thing to note is that David's results, noted at the beginning of this tip, really are sorted properly. The order 12.06.19, 10.12.24, and 10.09.16 indicates that the dates are in descending sorted order. To get the dates into ascending order, you need to make sure the Ascending option is chosen in the Sort dialog box.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (5906) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Sorting Dates Numerically.
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2020-04-19 05:07:51
Ken
A selection can contain more than one paragraph and you need to specify specify which. If the selection is only only part of a paragraph or is an insertion point in the paragraph, then you must still specify the first (1) and you will get the the whole paragraph.
In a similar way, a range could contain multiple footnotes so you need to specify the first even though in this case it will have only one.
The logic of the compound statement is:
"Selection.Paragraphs(1)" gives a Paragraph object
".Range" gives the range of the paragraph
".Footnotes(1)" gives the Footnote object of the first footnote in the range
".Index" gives the index number of the Footnote object.
2020-04-18 04:51:08
Simon Freeman
I am a bit puzzled. Why the "1" in brackets after Paragraphs and Footnotes in: "Set f = Selection.Paragraphs(1).Range.Footnotes(1)"? Thanks.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: 
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