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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-03T23:39:35+00:00

I just want to sort this based on Month and year combination (that is,

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I just want to sort this based on Month and year combination (that is, based on column A) ascending. How to do this in OpenOffice Calc? The sort option on month is not working because I guess the year is also appended.

Here are some data starting from A1:

Month                    Total
September 2011           27825
September 2010           35801
October 2011             108485
October 2010             22223
November 2011            139222
May 2012                 39319
May 2011                 38226
May 2010                 9671
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    There are different solutions:

    • You could transform the values of column A as dates so OpenOffice / LibreOffice can sort them accordingly (see Solution 1 below);
    • You could split the text values into two columns (month and year separately) and sort first for year, then for month (see Solution 2 below).

    Solution 1

    1. Select the cells holding the month/year values;
    2. Select Menu Format -> Cells... -> Numbers;
    3. Select Date from left list;

    4. Enter the following format code in the Format Code field: MMMM YYYY
      format

    5. Hit OK

    6. With the cells still selected, select Menu Edit -> Find & Replace... or hit CTRL+H

    7. In field Search for, enter a single dot, and in field Replace with an ampersand (&) ; hit More Options, tick Regular Expression. Select Replace all:

      search

    8. Select cell A1, apply sorting using Menu Data -> Sort by column A (“month”).

    As result, OpenOffice / LibreOffice transforms the values of column A into dates (for example, 01/09/2011 instead of September 2011). The displayed cell content will stay “September 2011” because of the custom cell format using the code MMMM YYYY. When sorting, OpenOffice / LibreOffice recognizes the dates and sorts by month/date.

    Solution 2

    1. Insert a new column next to col A for the year values: select column B, select Menu Insert -> Columns;
    2. Select column A, select Menu Data -> Text to Columns...
    3. In the following dialogue, select Space as delimiter, then hit OK;
    4. Add Year as header in cell B1;
    5. Select cell A1, select Menu Data -> Sort; select first year, then month; don’t hit OK yet (otherwise the months would get sorted alphabetically), but select Options -> Custom sort order; select the months sort order. Now, hit OK.
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