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In an Access database, you can change the order in which existing records are displayed in a view or report by applying a sort order. For step-by-step information about applying a sort order, see the topic Sort records.

If you have already applied a sort order but don't see the records in the expected order, do one or more of the following:

• Review the sort order to ensure that the fields and expressions, and the sort order for each field or expression, are specified as you intended. Also, review the order of the sort fields, since Access sorts left-to-right by default. For more information, see the section "Review the sort order settings" in the topic Sort records.
• If you specified a default sort order, remember that records are displayed in default order only when the object was not saved with a different order. To understand how default and sort orders work, see the section "Save and reapply a sort order" in the topic Sort records.
• When working with a form, remember that there is no distinction between default and saved sort orders. A sort order that is specified in the OrderBy property of a form in Design view will be replaced when a different sort order is applied in Form view.
• Sort orders specified in Design view, Datasheet view, or in Form view do not affect the sort orders specified in PivotTable and PivotChart views, and vice versa.
• If you're working in a multiuser environment, another user may have applied a different sort order. When a user applies a sort order, it replaces the previous sort order.
• Review and, if necessary, change the default language setting of the database and the regional settings of your computer.

  Review the database and regional settings

  Two settings — the language that has been chosen as the default for a database, and the regional settings specified in Control Panel as the default for your computer — influence the sort orders that you apply.

  Review or set the default language for sorting data in a database   On the Tools menu, click Options. On the General tab, review or change the value in the New database sort order box. Set the value in this box to General if you want to use one of these languages — Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Catalan, Dutch, English, Faeroese, Farsi, German - Standard, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Swahili, and Urdu. Note that this setting only affects new databases. To apply this setting to an existing database, you must compact the database. For more information, see the topic Compact an Access database.

  Review or change the regional settings in Control Panel    The order in which numbers, text, and special characters are sorted depends on the settings in the Regional and Language Options window in Control Panel. For more information, see Windows Help.

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• The field you specified the sort order for may be hidden. If you want the field you're using to sort records to be displayed, make sure the Show check box is selected in the query design grid.
• If you sort on a memo field, remember that records will be sorted based only on the first 255 characters.
• If numbers are not sorting properly, check the data type of the column of field. If numbers are stored in a text field, they will be sorted based on their first characters instead of on the numeric value. For more information about avoiding this, see the section "Sort numbers stored in a non-numeric field" in the topic Sort records.
• Check to see if the records are sorted in custom order. Check the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code attached to form, report, or page events.

If you are still having problems with the sort order, see the topic Troubleshoot sorting for more information.