One of your users complains frequently that she has to reset the zoom factor every time she starts a new document — and apparently, she starts a lot of new documents! What can you do to help?

Last week we asked…

You sorted a spreadsheet, but only half of the columns sorted. What happened? Excel will automatically sort a contiguous range, and for a long time, the sort works correctly. Then, one day it doesn’t. The problem is in the contiguous range, as Dmanbo suggests. Palmetto agreed and offered some great advice — always save before a sort! Stimpy_gr was the first to get the full picture. If there’s an empty column, the sort won’t work as expected. LocoLobo and Palmetto caught on after I gave a second clue — the spreadsheet appears to be contiguous. You might be surprised how often I see this happen. Someone inserts a blank column and then hides it. Usually, they don’t do so maliciously. They just don’t understand the full ramifications of that hidden column.

Mfoster suggested highlighting the data rather than relying on the automatic sort. It’s a good idea in a small spreadsheet. If you prefer this method but work with a large spreadsheet, give the sort area a name and then use F5 to highlight the range before sorting.