In this episode of the AppleVis Podcast, Gaurav returns with Lesson 4 in the series on mastering Numbers, Apple’s free spreadsheet app for Mac.
In this installment, he dives into two powerful tools for organizing your data: Sort and Quick Filter. These features help you manage and analyze spreadsheets more efficiently—especially when working with larger datasets.
We’re using a sample budget spreadsheet with categories like Food, Water, Transportation, and Internet, each with amounts listed for January. Here’s how we sorted that data to quickly find the highest expenses:
Sorting the January Column
- Opened the Sort Options via the menu (Command + Option + R).
- Selected the January column.
- Chose Descending to sort from highest to lowest values.
- Instantly, the data reorganized itself to prioritize the largest expenses.
Quick Filter: Focusing Your View
Next, we explored the Quick Filter tool—a great way to temporarily hide or display specific rows without permanently deleting data. For example, we hid the Food row with a checkbox and brought it back with a simple undo (Command + Z).
Advanced Filtering
We also touched on advanced filtering available in the Formatter pane. There, you can set precise criteria for what appears in your spreadsheet—ideal for more complex sorting needs.
Recap
- Sort Function: Explained how and why to use it.
- Hands-On Example: Sorted the January column using VoiceOver and keyboard commands.
- Undo + Quick Filter: Demonstrated hiding rows and bringing them back.
- Formatter Pane: Previewed more detailed filter controls.
These tools make navigating and analyzing your spreadsheet data faster and more intuitive. Try them out, experiment a bit, and as always—reach out if you have questions! 💡📊
Happy sorting!
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Gaurav:Hello everyone. So today we will continue our sessions on the Numbers application. And today we will be talking about the sort function. There are two or three different types of sort that we can apply to our data. The sort function is one of the most used and most useful functions or features of a spreadsheet. And today we'll see how to use that for better navigation and analysis of our data.
Gaurav:So we're back in our spreadsheet.
VoiceOver: Food column header cell.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: I'm back in cell A1. And if we're just going to go and view all the data we have in column A. Food row header cell cell A2.
VoiceOver: Water row header cell cell A3. Transportation row header cell cell A3.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: A4 internet row header cell cell A5 row header cell cell A6 all right so we have five from row two to row five we have data in this table now what I want to do is I want to sort the data in the January column column header January column header cell cell b1 so let's go through the January column food 100 water 50
Gaurav/VoiceOver: Transportation 300 internet 20 row 6 empty cell all right in January so what I want to do now is I want to rearrange all the data in the January column to be in the order of descending order which means I want the highest value item first and the lowest value item at the bottom and everything sorted in between
Gaurav:So I am going to go and press VO plus M for menu.
VoiceOver: Apple menu numbers menu. Right arrow.
Gaurav:You are file menu.
VoiceOver: Edit menu. Right arrow. You insert menu. Right arrow. You table menu. Organize menu.
Gaurav:Organize.
Gaurav: Now here I'm currently on a menu.
Gaurav:Here I'm going to press the down arrow.
VoiceOver: Apply sort rules. Dim command. Show sort options. Command option R. Show. You are currently on a menu item.
Gaurav:Show sort options. And the keyboard command is command option R for Roger but we can also access it through the menu that we have just done now and here I'm going to hit enter January column header cell now here I'm going to press VO plus J for jump in formatter group I'm in the formatter VO shift down to interact rate for closing rate menu category interact with the title of radio
VoiceOver: Stop interacting with the type categories. Ready. Sort. Selected. Radio.
Gaurav:And here I have the sort option. Once I interact with the formatted pane.
VoiceOver: Categories.
Gaurav:I have the categories on the first option. I hit VO plus right arrow. Sort.
VoiceOver: Selected.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: Radio. Selected. Okay, so sort is selected. I'm going to hit VO plus R, right arrow a few more times.
VoiceOver: Filter. Radio. Sort now. Tint button.
Gaurav:Sort now.
Gaurav: Sort by the columns you've added.
Gaurav:So here I'm going to press VO right arrow again.
VoiceOver: Sort entire table. Pop up button. Sort entire table.
Gaurav: Choose to sort selected rows or all rows in the table.
Gaurav:Okay, I'm going to hit VO space. Menu.
VoiceOver: Check mark. Sort entire table.
Gaurav:OK, so it's mentioned it's going to sort the entire table. If I change this option, I can just have it sort only specific rows which I've selected. But as of now, I want it to sort the entire table. VO right arrow again.
VoiceOver: Sort rows by multiple columns. Dim. Add a column. Menu button.
Gaurav:Add a column here. Choose a column to sort by. **VO space.
VoiceOver: Column A. January. February, March, January.
Gaurav:So I'm going to select January VO space.
VoiceOver: No action available. Menu button.
Gaurav:Now I'm going to hit VO right arrow.
VoiceOver: Budget sheet. Wide back sheet navigator. Tag group.
Gaurav:I guess I'm out of the format. I'm going to go back into the format of VOJ.
VoiceOve: In budget sheet. In February. Column in formatter. Enter a category. Sword. Select. Fill sort now. Sort entire table. Pop up sort formatter. Sort formatter. Scroll here. Sort formatter. Viewer shift down.
VoiceOver: In sort for January. Pop up button.
Gaurav:I'm going to sort.
VoiceOver: Change which column to sort by.
Gaurav:Sort by the January column.
VoiceOver: Delete rule button.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: Ascending column ascending delete rule button January so it's mentioned that it is going to sort by the January column be your right button ascending ascending or I'm going to press VO space on the ascending rule menu check mark descending for check mark ascending descending three it's giving me the options of ascending or descending as we mentioned earlier we want in descending order from the highest value to the lowest value check descending All right.
Gaurav:And now we're going to jump back into our table VOJ.
VoiceOver: Table one. Table one.
Gaurav:VO shift down.
VoiceOver: In February. January. Column header.
Gaurav:All right.
VoiceOver: Column header January.
Gaurav:We're back into the January column. I'm going to hit the down arrow.
VoiceOver: Transportation 300. 300. Food 100. 100, 50, 20.
Gaurav:So as you can see, now it has sorted the data in exactly the way we wanted to in the descending order from highest value to lowest value. We can also do it in ascending order, which would mean from lowest value to highest value. And of course, right now, since we have numerical values filled into this column, it is only giving us two options of ascending or descending.
Gaurav:But if we were to have some text data in this column, then it would also give us option of alphabetical or backwards alphabetical from A to Z or from Z to A. So you have all these various options when sorting data. Now, the next thing I want to show you is something called a quick filter. So I'm going to press VO plus Z to undo the sort.
VoiceOver: Undo move.
Gaurav:Again.
VoiceOver: February. Column. January. Feb. March.
Gaurav:All right. So I had option plus Z to undo the sort. So I'm just going to make sure it's undone the sort.
VoiceOver: Internet 20. Internet 20. Water 50. Food 100. Transportation 300.
VoiceOver: January, column food 100, water 50, transportation 3, internet 20.
Gaurav:Okay, yeah, it has undone the sort because as you can see now, it is no longer in ascending or descending order, but back into a varied order how it was originally. So now I'm going to show you something called the quick filter. I'm going to move back to cell A1, command left arrow, command up arrow.
VoiceOver: Column header cell, row header cell.
Gaurav:Now, the way the quick filter works is that you need to go into any cell in the column which you want to filter. In my case, I've gone into column A where I have all the names of the various categories of the items in my budget. And I'm going to hit view, shift and M for the contextual menu click. Now I'm going to hit down arrow.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: Quick filter. Here I'm going to hit VO space to click on this. It's opened up popover. I'm going to hit VO right arrow to go and
VoiceOver: View and explore the options in this pop-up menu. View right arrow.
Gaurav: I have this search option.
VoiceOver: View right arrow.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: Deselect all. Show selected. View right arrow. Now I'm in a list. I need to interact.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: View shift down arrow. In list. Now again, view right arrow.
VoiceOver: Food one instance in table check check box food one instance in table that means that we have the word food in the table and there's only one cell in this column that contains the word food view right arrow internet one instance in table check check box internet actions available transportation water
Gaurav:So now I have checkboxes with all the different items in the column. And I can select or deselect the ones I want to show or hide. So let's hide food.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: I have food highlighted with the VO cursor. I'm going to hit VO plus space to click it. Unchecked. So now food has been unchecked.
Gaurav:I'm going to un-interact, out of list, and I'm going to hit the escape key to come out of the popover menu, and now we're going to go back into column A, V-O left arrow, V-O up arrow, sorry, command, and...
Gaurav/VoiceOver: Column header cell row header all right column header cell column A but now we're going to press down arrow water row header set transportation transportation internet row headers row header cell so you can see now the word food and all the data in that row has been hidden because we have deselected it in the quick sort or the quick filter menu so that menu allows us to very quickly select or deselect anything that we want to show or hide within our table
Gaurav:I'm going to press command Z for Zebra to undo that. Now that we're again in cell A1, I'm going to press down arrow and you can see that the food has now been returned back into our table because we have undone the quick filter. So these are just a few tips how you can use the sort and the quick filter.
Gaurav:And if you want, in the formatter pane on the side, VO plus J, interact, VO shift down, VO right arrow, filter. So you can see in the formatter pane on the right side of the screen, we also have the filter option, VO space to select. and V or right arrow to explore.
VoiceOver: Filters.
Gaurav:Add a filter. V or space.
Gaurav:So now we're into the add filter menu. This is the filters option on the right side in the formatter pane. And here you will have many more different options of how you may want to filter your data. Here you can add rules. You can say hide anything or filter out anything that is below 50 or you can say filter out anything which is above 100. You can make all types of rules which you want.
Gaurav:So that you can quickly filter out data when you have, let's say, hundreds of rows of data. So I'm not going to get into that right now. That's something that you can explore on your own. But as of now, I've shown you how to sort data and how to do a quick filter. And I've just given you a brief overview of the deeper filter options in the formatter pane. Hope this is helpful.