How to Build a Top 5 List with SORT and TAKE in Excel

Build live leaderboards: top 5 sellers, bottom 3, and the top 3 within any genre, by combining SORT, TAKE and FILTER.

You will learn to

• Build a top-5 list by sorting and taking
• Build a bottom-3 list
• Build a top-3 list within a category

How it works

A top-N list is two steps: sort the data so the best rows come first, then keep the first N. =TAKE(SORT(A2:C12,3,-1),5) sorts a sales table by revenue, highest first, and keeps five rows. Because it is a formula, the leaderboard reorders itself as soon as the numbers change.

Flip the sort order to 1 for a bottom-N list of the weakest performers, and put FILTER inside the SORT to rank within one category — =TAKE(SORT(FILTER(A2:C12,B2:B12="Nature"),3,-1),3) gives the top three Nature titles. If fewer rows exist than you ask for, TAKE simply returns them all.

=TAKE(SORT(A2:C12,3,-1),5)