Pivot table filter pane is not sorted. Why?
Sophia Terry 
In my pivot table filter, the column containing numeric values is not sorted, while the corresponding column in my data table is nicely sorted. Why?
Data:
Original pivot:
I recreated the same table in another sheet.
Recreated pivot:
As can be seen, it is now sorted numerically. What caused the sort order in the filter pane of the original table to get distorted (the order is neither numerical, nor alphabetical)?
2 Answers
When you initially create a PivotTable, the default sort order is A to Z for text, or small to large for numeric:
When you add new data and refresh, the new data is not sorted in the PivotTable, but instead just gets added to the end of the older sorted data, in whatever order it appears in the source Table:
...and ditto for the order in the Filter dialog:
...but you can fix this by clicking the Sort Smallest to Largest or A to Z sort options in those previous screenshots, after which new items should be sorted appropriately:
The filter pane always uses alpha sort order, not numerical sort. Excel expects numeric data in the values area, not in the labels. If a numeric field is used in the rows or columns area, it will be treated as text, and the filter dialog will show the values in alphabetical sort order.
Don't shoot the messenger.
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