Title sorting not working

[JollyRoger]

I recently listed all my Dean Koontz books, and after changing the sorting to 'strictly_alphabetic' I find that the list still sorts as though 'The' wasn't there in the title. So, The Orchard would be listed under the letter 'O' instead of the letter 'T'.
I've spent a little time trying to sort this out but now I need help.
I want the alphabetical sort to work from the first letter of the first word of the title. Can anyone help?

[JollyRoger]

Oddly, if I list the Series, that does list them alphabetically, but listing the titles does not lol
Also, any title beginning with 'A', the A is ignored too! What's going on?

[ownedbycats]

There's separate title and title_sort columns - did you update the latter via bulk metadata editor?

Control title and series sorting in the library view. If set to 'library_order', the title sort field will be used instead of the title. Unless you have manually edited the title sort field, leading articles such as The and A will be ignored. If set to 'strictly_alphabetic', the titles will be sorted as-is (sort by title instead of title sort). For example, with library_order, The Client will sort under 'C'. With strictly_alphabetic, the book will sort under 'T'. This flag affects calibre's library display. It has no effect on devices. In addition, titles for books added before changing the flag will retain their order until the title is edited. Editing a title and hitting Enter without changing anything is sufficient to change the sort. Or you can use the 'Update title sort' action in the Bulk metadata edit dialog to update it for many books at once.

[JollyRoger]

It was set to library order, I changed it to strictly alphabetically. So now I have to go through every book and change the titles anyway? That seems like a massive amount of work for such a high end programme.
I've never even opened the Bulk Metadata so I'll have a look in there. Thanks.

[JollyRoger]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

There's separate title and title_sort columns - did you update the latter via bulk metadata editor?

It took me a little while to figure it out but I got there in the end. Thank you, you saved me loads of time and hassle!