In short, what used to work for me, 100s or times, for many years, seemingly just changed its behavior. Whether I include row1 in my selection, or not, the results are as indicated. I include a screen print of the situation and attach the ods itself. It used to, as I said, I have been using OO for some 15 years if I am not mistaken, long time anyway.

I may not know what labels mean, but if they are just plain text formatted cell, I have labels, and I find in last few weeks, that calc does NOT follow what you specify in the bullet list. Regarding that quote above and your bullet list about the first row selected.

If you always use labels, as is common for many experienced Calc users, Data → Sort will operate consistently. Some features of Calc are not available unless column labels are used. Principal Components in Ten concepts that every Calc user should know. If Calc guesses incorrectly, you can override its choice by setting the Range includes column labels option yourself. It will include them in the sort and makes you specify the sort criteria by column letter as there is no other good way without column labels.

If your first row values contain something else, Calc guesses that you don't want them treated as column labels.

It will not include them in the sort, and allows you to select the sort criteria using the column labels, since that's more convenient than by column letter.

If your first row values are all text, Calc guesses that you want these cells treated as column labels.

When you sort, Calc tries to help you by guessing how you would want the option should be set. JKctHolmes wrote:I cannot speculate anything, any change, which would bring on this odd behavior.This behavior depends on Data → Sort → Options → Range includes column labels.

Openoffice columns issue