Example of Sort

A chemical engineer wants to compare the hardness of four blends of paint. The paint samples were cured at different temperatures by different operators. The engineer wants to sort the data so that it is easier to see which blend and operator are associated with each observation.

Open the sample data, PaintHardness.MTW.
Choose Data > Sort.
In the first Columns to sort by, enter Paint.
In the second Columns to sort by, enter Operator.
From Columns to sort, select All columns.
From Storage location for the sorted columns, select At the end of the current worksheet.
Click OK.

Results

Columns C5–C8 contain the sorted data. Because Paint is the first column to sort by, all observations for Blend 1 are at the top of the worksheet, followed by all observations for Blend 2, and so on.

Operator is the second column to sort by. Therefore, within the rows for Blend 1, the data for Operator 1 is at the top, followed by the data for Operator 2, and then Operator 3. This pattern repeats for each blend.

C1-T	C2	C3	C4	C5-T	C6	C7	C8
Paint	Hardness	Temp	Operator	Sorted Paint	Sorted Hardness	Sorted Temp	Sorted Operator
Blend 2	14.9	30.3	1	Blend 1	19.3	30.0	1
Blend 3	13.0	30.9	2	Blend 1	10.4	29.6	2
Blend 4	15.0	30.5	2	Blend 1	17.0	29.4	3
Blend 1	17.0	29.4	3	Blend 1	13.9	30.0	3
Blend 1	13.9	30.0	3	Blend 1	16.1	29.9	3
Blend 3	16.4	29.6	1	Blend 1	11.7	30.1	3
Blend 1	10.4	29.6	2	Blend 2	14.9	30.3	1
Blend 2	3.2	29.9	2	Blend 2	7.3	28.6	1
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...