I have used the freeze icon to freeze the first row of my spreadsheet. I then tell the sheet to sort by a column header but it will only sometimes keep the frozen row where it should be. I have tried the same function at other times and even within the same document and the frozen row stays put. Why doesn’t the freeze function work all the time? Why would calc sort that row?
Are you using the simple Sort Ascending / Sort Descending commands, or are you doing something more complicated?
What I’m curious about is why the title / top row isn’t frozen by default when sorting as that is what people would want 99% of the time. I have fought with my Calc program off and on and it continually shows that it was designed by very illogically thinking people. So many things don’t make any sense. But this is one of them. When you first sort a popup SHOULD ask you if you want to sort the top row. You say no because you’re not crazy. Then it works from then on. And in Settings there is an option to disable this if you want. Get it designers?
I’ve noticed that a lot of non-profit software seems to be designed by groups of people, each working in their own zone and they don’t really talk to each other much. That’s what it looks like. Like there’s no logically thinking person that overseas things and will point out things that make no sense when they see them to get the designers back on the logic track.
I suspect autism as it is high amongst software designers. They are brilliant in some areas but in other areas, especially layout it seems, they do not think like most of us and this simply means they need to be monitored closely so they can be corrected when they go a little off course. I hope that doesn’t sound mean. But it’s just the truth. I could never do what they do as I don’t have the mental skills.
Menu View - Freeze Rows and Columns has nothing to do with menu Data - Sort.
When you select a range to sort, and you see the column headers content as Sort Keys, column headers will not be moved. If you don’t see the column headers content as Sort Keys, go to the Options tab and check Range contains columns labels.
Tested with LibreOffice 6.4.7.2 (x86); OS: Windows 6.1.
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When people sort a column 99.99% of the time they don’t want the spreadsheet to be a jumbled mess so they need everything else sorted along with the column chosen. This should be obvious. This seems to work on Calc. Click top of column, Data, Sort Ascending. Bam!
BUT…almost all spreadsheets have a title on the top of every column.
You’d THINK that LibreOffice in their infinite design wisdom would NOT sort the top row or allow us to label it as a Title row which obviously would never get sorted.
It even sorts the top row when I don’t even highlight the top row and click Data, Sort Ascending. Or Data, Sort, Extend Selection. How does that even happen? The top row isn’t even highlighted!
Most of the time Calc does assume the top row is a title row. If there is a continuous range above what you want to sort then they will be included.
In the sample Sheet 1 and Sheet 2 sort as you expect.
Sheet 3 doesn’t until you delete cell B3, separating the data from various other stuff. Or you select the range (A4:C17) that you want to sort
RandomStuff.ods (13.1 KB)
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Menu View - Freeze Rows and Columns has nothing to do with menu Data - Sort.
Yes I get that now but this is going to confuse a lot of people because most of us would just assume the top line wouldn’t scroll OR sort because what kind of spreadsheet has no title for each column and that title would always be on the top row. And what spreadsheet users would want the title of each column to be sorted? I don’t even know how people that make these design decisions can find their way out their front door each day.
Ugh…If only LO would have the sense to maybe not require telepathy from its users and label it’s functions more helpfully like:
Freeze Rows and Columns (sorting)
Freeze Rows and Columns (scrolling)
Or
Freeze (sorting)
Freeze (scrolling)
Or
Sorting - Include/Ignore
Scrolling - Include/Ignore
and be able to click it on or off. There are so many ways of vastly improving this.
Above the column header or below the bottom row.
If only one cell is selected then LibreOffice will expand the range to include touching, filled cells. If there is a filled cell touching the range that you do not want sorted then you must select the range manually
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I can’t even begin to understand why anyone would design it like that. I’ll just make sure there is an empty row below the title row. It’s not a big deal. I just wonder how many other insane choices LO designers have made that I’ll discover going forward. Other than this sorting issue and some keyboard shortcuts that don’t translate over from word processing programs, Calc has been really great. And one day they’ll realize that maybe when we select Full Screen we do NOT want a full screen icon box anywhere on the screen. Another example of LO logic. Of course Microsoft has been doing exactly the same demented thing for years. Full Screen should mean NOTHING except our work. We don’t need reminders. We don’t all have amnesia.
Above the title row, see sheet 3 in the sample I posted.
If you separate the column labels from the data, as you suggest, they won’t be connected and you won’t be able to sort by column label.