Sort by Merged Cells

[way2tall]

Hello and thanks in advance for the help.

I am working on a workbook with over 2000 rows. The first row is a header row.
rows 2 and 3 are related - 4 and 5 are related (and so on)
Cell A not important to this issue
Cells B2 and B3 contains item names
Cell C not important to this issue
Cell D not important to this issue
Cells E2 and E3 contain a numeric values
Cells F2 and F3 are merged and contains a formula that will compare the numeric values in cells E2 and E3 and display the name of the item from cells B2 or B3 with the greater value or the word "tie" if the values are equal. (that formula is done)

What I need help on is sorting by the merged cells in column F without messing up the data in other columns.
If that is not possible, Is there a way to highlight the entire row (one color for item name 1 and another color for item name 2) Not worried about the ones that say "tied"

[kersplash]

Attach a workbook with some sample data, showing what you want as a result.

Go Advanced -> Manage Attachments -> Upload

[FDibbins]

Merged cells are the devils work LOL - they cause all sorts of problems (like you just encountered)

1 way around this would be to add a helper column, and create a unique ID for each pair of merges, then use that in the sort

[way2tall]

Thanks again for any help.
I have attached a sample of how it should look like including merged cells with working formula.

What I am asking is to be able to sort by last column or to highlight cells based off then input of last column.

I hope this helps.

[FDibbins]

Would you only ever have 2 merged cells, or could there be more?

[way2tall]

There will only be 2 merged cells as shown in the example.
Not belittling you... I got an error message that by answer was too short..

Thanks again for everything.

[FDibbins]

OK, I just remembered, you actually cannot sort a table with merged cells

[way2tall]

What about conditional formatting?
Do you know of a rule that I can apply highlighting rows based off the merged cells?

Thanks again..

[FDibbins]

So you want all name 1's 1 color, all name 2's another color etc. How many names could you have? Remember, each color is a new rule

[way2tall]

Correct but only from the merged cells. the names in column B will only be name 1 or name 2.

[JeteMc]

Expanding on Ford's suggestion of a helper column (G), which could be moved and/or hidden for aesthetic purposes, it could be populated using: =IF(F2<>"",F2,G1)
Sheet1 shows how it could be used to apply conditional formatting. The CF rules are:
For Name 1: =$G2="Name 1"
For Name 2: =$G2="Name 2"
Both rules are applied to the range $A$2:$F$11
Sheet2 shows that if the range is converted into a table you could either sort or filter using the helper column although you would unmerge the formatting either way.
Let us know if you have any questions.