Excel: How to treat multiple lines as one while sorting?
I get a XLS-File as a database report. The File is in the following format:
| Customer | Name | ... | Orders
1 | 6 | ... | ... | 1234
2 | | | | 4567
3 | | | | 8910
4 | 3 | ... | ... | 3210
5 | | | | 8765
6 | 1 | ... | ... | 1000
7 | | | | 1001
I need to sort this thing on a column which is only "filled" in the first line of a "record" (here: Line 1-3, 4+5, 6+7) like "Customer" in this example. Is there a way (without falling back to VBA) to keep the lines together which form a "record" while sorting on them. I know, this is abusing Excel but I have no other choise here.
The expected output after sorting on "Customer" would be:
| Customer | Name | ... | Orders
1 | 1 | ... | ... | 1000
2 | | | | 1001
3 | 3 | ... | ... | 3210
4 | | | | 8765
5 | 6 | ... | ... | 1234
6 | | | | 4567
7 | | | | 8910
You could create an additional column that fills in the blank and use it for sorting purposes - assuming customer is in column A and the new column in column E, you can put in E2:
=IF(A2="",E1,A2)
and drag the formula down.
Every time you change the data, you would need to make sure the formula is copied to the bottom of the range containing data.