Unable to Sort Multiple Columns

[Parallax Abstraction]

Good day all! I've seen this posted in a million other places, but I
wasn't able to get my question fully answered. I'm creating a simple
sheet to list common TCP/IP service names and their appropriate port
numbers. The first column is a description of the service name (which
is 4 cells wide) and then I have two sets of 2 merged cells which
contain the UDP & TCP port ranges respectively. I want to sort the
entire list by the TCP port numbers, but can't because Excel says that
the "merged cells must be identically sized." Everyone's solution to
this problem is to unmerge all the cells. That is no good here though
because doing so will end up truncating most of the service
descriptions in the first merged column set. If I unmerge everything
and then sort, I have to manually re-merge all the cells again in each
row which when this list gets large, will not be practical. Is there
any way I can sort the tables in this way while not having to
re-format it each time I want to sort? Thanks all!

 

[John Wilson]

Parallex,

Well, you already know that you can't sort with the cells merged.
I'm not sure how your sheet is set up but I'll guess that you want
it to "look" aesthetically pleasing (hence the merged cells).

Two alternatives come to mind.
The first being to use VBA to unmerge, sort and remerge your worksheet.
The second choice would be to set up a second sheet with all your
data in the normal 1 row per record format and have your first
aesthetically pleasing sheet linked to the data in the second one.
Now when you sort the second sheet, your "view" on the first
sheet will change too.

John