Cell size, sorting list and merging cells

[Ken]

I have a list with three seperate columns which I would
like to sort according to values in the middle column.
The first column contains all text which a user will
input; the second column contains a numeric value the
user inputs based on the text they enter in the first
column; the third column is a numeric value which is
associatied with the first two column, but is not
important in sorting the list. Because the first column
contains text, I merged several cells together to form
one large cell to display all the text. When I try to
sort the list, the operation cannot be performed because
the merged cells must be "identically sized". I tried
unmerging the cells, which allowed the list to be sorted
according to the values in the middle column, but I lose
most of the displayed text. Is it possible to accomplish
what I want to do using Excel? Do I need a macro to make
it work?

I am a new user of Excel. I am using Excel 2002 with
Windows 2000. I have everything updated. My attempts to
find anything which answered these questions were
unsuccesful.

Sincerely,

Ken

 

[Gord Dibben]

Merged cells are the spawn of Satan!

Forget trying to sort with merged cells.

How about wrapping text and row/column autofitting for your text-in-a-cell?

How much text do you have in the cells?

Excel Help states that "a cell can contain 32,767 characters but only 1024
will be visible or can be printed."

If you set the cell to wrap-text and place some ALT + ENTERS after every few
hundred characters you can get some more characters in the cell.

Gord Dibben Excel MVP

 

[Ken]

Gordon:

Thank you for the suggestion. It did allow me to sort
with the full text displayed; however, the text, only a
few hundred characters, appears in a large column with
only a couple of words per line: it looks unattractive
when printed. I would like the text to appear on one or
two lines when printed instead of forty or fifty lines. I
tried autofit for the row size without luck.

Thanks for your assistance.

Ken

 

[Gord Dibben]

Ken

Try dragging the column to its widest limit.

Gord

 

[Ken]

Job accomplished! Thank you, Gordon.

-----Original Message-----
Ken

Try dragging the column to its widest limit.

Gord



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