Sorting special elements

Survey Tabulation > Cell contents > Sorting rows and columns > Sorting special elements

There are a number of rules that apply when sorting axes that contain special elements. The default behavior depends on the element type.

The following element types are sorted by default:

▪Elements formed from a standard category

▪Nets

▪Elements created by combining categorical variables

▪Derived elements and those created using the Edit Category dialog box: see Edit Category dialog box.

The following element types have a fixed position by default:

▪Base

▪Unweighted base

▪Mean

▪Standard deviation

▪Standard error

▪Sample variance

▪Subtotal

▪Total

▪Minimum

▪Maximum

When an element has a fixed position, it means that if the element is the third element in the unsorted table, it will be the third element in the sorted table and elements that are sorted will move around it, when necessary. For this reason, it is usual to place unsorted elements at the beginning or end of the axis.

Text-only elements are never sorted. Unlike nets, they are not tied to the elements that follow. This means that text-only elements are not generally suitable for use in sorted tables.

For all element types apart from text-only elements, you can change the default sort behavior using the IsFixed property. See Element properties for more information.