Sorting a table while leaving spaces and merged cells

Hi! I am trying to make a general summary report on one day of food sales and I intend on doing this by using a macro (button) to insert rows above the existing rows and placing the values on the newly inserted row then sorting them from the first order to the last.

The problem is that I don't know how to arrange the cells so that they will ONLY be arranged by the ORDER NUMBER. and not alphabetically per column. Plus excel also doesn't let me sort rows with merged cells.

Also if I don't make the Order Numbers merged, excel will eliminate the spaces between the numbers and place them on top of each other.

Is there a way to arrange all the rows so that they only follow one column of sorting? With merged cells or at least spaces between the numbers? Thank you!

On the image attached, all I need is for the order number to be sorted from lowest to highest without the rest of the values also being sorted.

ExcelArrangementforHelp_zps3905f949.jpg

Hi KMDK,

Unfortunately Excel hates merged cells. They're a pain to work with and IMHO, you should never use them except for better looking layouts (titles, ...)

Try splitting your cells and copying the order numbers in the 2 empty cells. ?

Originally Posted by dourpil

Hi KMDK,

Unfortunately Excel hates merged cells. They're a pain to work with and IMHO, you should never use them except for better looking layouts (titles, ...)

Try splitting your cells and copying the order numbers in the 2 empty cells. ?

Hi dourpil!

Thanks for your reply. I just tried unmerging the cells and it works. The problem though is that since there are spaces in between the order numbers, when I sort them, the spaces get deleted and the numbers stick together. Plus all the items in the rest of the columns get sorted out as well. I need the other columns to only follow where the order numbers go and not be sorted each alphabetically.

What about manually entering the order# in the blank cells generated by unmerging?


I'm not sure what you mean with the other items sorting aswell... If you select your entire row of headers and enable filter on that, doesn't your data stick to the order# they were assigned to in the first place?