Turning Off Automatic Sorting in PivotTables

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 7, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021


1

When Katara creates a PivotTable, Excel automatically sorts the data that appears in the PivotTable. She would rather not have the data sorted at all—it is just fine in the data range on which she's basing the PivotTable. Katara wonders if there is any way to turn off the automatic sorting.

Automatic sorting can be turned off by taking advantage of a setting that is (honestly) not that easy to find. Follow these steps:

  1. Create your PivotTable as you normally would.
  2. Click the down-arrow at the right of the Column Labels cell or the Row Labels cell, depending on whether you want to affect column or row sorting. Excel displays some options.
  3. Choose More Sort Options. Excel displays the Sort dialog box.
  4. At the bottom left of the dialog box click More Options. Excel displays the More Sort Options dialog box. (See Figure 1.)
  5. Figure 1. The More Sort Options dialog box.

  6. Clear the first checkbox in the dialog box (Sort Automatically Every Time the Report is Updated).
  7. Click OK to dismiss the More Sort Options dialog box. Excel again displays the Sort dialog box.
  8. Click OK to dismiss the Sort dialog box.

If you would like to explore additional PivotTable sorting capabilities, you might find this web page, by Debra Dalgleish, to be helpful:

https://www.contextures.com/excel-pivot-table-sorting.html

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12880) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Opening Documents in Print Layout View

If you have a Word 2003 document that always seems to open in reading layout mode, you may want to turn that "feature" ...

Discover More

Assigning a Macro to a Button in Your Text

One way you can access macros is through the use of a button, added directly into the text of your document. This is done ...

Discover More

Find and Replace in Headers

Using Find and Replace is something quite routine in Excel, as it easily allows you to find and replace information in ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Formatting a PivotTable

You can format PivotTables using either manual formatting or automatic formatting. You need to be careful, however, as ...

Discover More

Suppressing Zero Values in PivotTables

PivotTables are great for digesting and analyzing huge amounts of data. But what if you want part of that data excluded, ...

Discover More

Setting Stable Column Widths in a PivotTable

When you update a PivotTable, Excel can take liberties with any formatting you previously applied to the PivotTable. ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 4 + 9?

2022-06-18 14:18:04

ProblemChild

I have many pivot tables in a sheet. How to disable auto-sort option for columns for all the pivot tables using VBA. I don't want the columns to auto-sort and move left or right from the order in which I've set it up.
(see Figure 1 below)

Figure 1. 


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.