Manipulating and re-ordering the Country Data Table

Here are a few tips to help you sort, re-order and manipulate the data in the Country Data Table.

• You will see that the table has a note running across the top of it that begins: ‘Information in this table…’ with a red background. You need to delete this row (number 1) – having of course read it and taken on board the information it contains.
• Next you need to go to the top of the page and select the ‘Data’ menu, then the ‘Sort’ option.
• In the pop-up box that appears, you firstly need to select ‘Header Row’ at the bottom, under the heading ‘My data range has’.
• You then need to select the column you wish to sort. For this example, imagine you want to sort the data in Column F (Life Expectancy). You therefore need to go to the ‘Sort by’ box and select ‘Column F’ from the dropdown menu, by clicking on it.
• Next to this box you can decide whether you would like to sort your data in ascending or descending order, and select the appropriate option by clicking on it.
• Then click ‘ok’ and your chosen column will be sorted.

• You will notice that there are three main column headings: Geographical, Social, and Economic, each comprising a number of sub-columns.
• Let’s turn to the main column heading entitled Social as an example of this. There are 6 columns that fall under the title Social: D,E,F,G,H and I.
• Imagine you want to sort the data in column D (the first column that falls under Social). As before, you need to go to the ‘Data’ menu at the top of the page and select ‘Sort’.
• As before, you firstly need to select ‘Header Row’ as your ‘Data Range’. (This will affect the options offered in the ‘Sort by’ box.)
• To sort the information in column D, you will then have to select ‘Social’ from the drop down options in the ‘Sort by’ box (because you do not have the option of selecting ‘column D’). The reason for this is that this spreadsheet calls the first column of each main section by the section title, not by a column letter.
• Another example of this: if you then wanted to sort the data in column J, you would have to select ‘Economic’ in the drop down menu at the top of the ‘Sort’ box. You would not have the option of selecting ‘column J’, as this is the first column in the Economic section. However, the remaining columns in each section are still called ‘column K’, ‘column L’ etc in the ‘Sort’ box.
• You can of course then select ‘ascending’ or ‘descending’ and finally click ‘ok’ as before. This will sort the data in your chosen column.