Q&A for How to Alphabetize Cells in Excel

First, highlight the set of cells that are connected to the last name. Click 'Sort', which in 2016 is located under the 'Sort & Filter' menu as 'Custom Sort'. Next, look for the column to sort your names to and select the column letter that corresponds with the worksheet column you want to sort by. Click 'OK' and the columns will be sorted to the specifications you selected.

If only one cell is selected, Excel will assume you want the entire block of information sorted. If more than one cell is selected, it will only sort the selection, and often will return a message asking to confirm that you really want to sort only part of a block of information (a rare use case).

Not automatically. You can either insert a line where the entry should be alphabetically before adding, or simply add it to the bottom and re-sort.

To add a single column in Excel, right-click the heading letter of a column and select "Insert" from the right-click options. The new column will be inserted to the left of the right-clicked column. To add multiple adjacent columns in Excel, select a number of adjacent column heading letters equal to the number of columns you wish to insert, then right-click on one of them and select "Insert" from the right-click options. This will add a number of new columns equal to the number of selected columns, again to the left of the selected columns.

Move the column you want to alphabetize to the front, highlight it, then click "Sort A-Z."