Sorting Text Fields

Do you and your users know how Project 98 and 2000 sort text fields? If  not, read on because the answer isn't as cut-and-dry as you might  think.

When there are both letters and numbers in a text field, Project uses  kind of a combination alpha sort and numerical sort, as you can see in  this example:

1. ABB13

2. ABB113

In a pure alpha sort, the numeral two should be first. But in the above  example, the numeral one is first because Project evaluates the letters and then evaluates numbers as numbers rather than as an alpha sort.  Project only does this when the letters preceding the numbers are the  same. So if you remove a letter B from the numeral two above, the sort  will change because AB would go before ABB, making the numbers 13 and  113 irrelevant to the sorting process.

The upside is that for most users, this combination sort produces the  expected values; very few users would expect the pure alphabetic sorting.

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