Excel Filter Problem

[tylerstyle]

Ive got a big question!!!

Ive created a massive Excel document and have a Problem.

My Document goes from A till AA.
One Data sheet of it has 4 lines.

From A4 - A7
A8 - A11
and so on...

Some of the Data Fields in this list are combined Fields.
For example A 4 - A 7 now is a combined Field, B 4 - B 7 is combine
too, etc.
Some Fields arent combined like L 4 - L 7.
They contain different textual inputs.

So my list is done and I want to Filter it after Cell A.

When I filter it, it only shows The top First line of Each result!

For example only the A 4 Line. The lines A5 - A7 are brushed away.

But it is important, that all of that Data is shown!

A4 - A7 belongs together!!

Is there any possability to make him show everything?

I dont understand, why the filter cant get along with combine
fields...


I hope somebody unterstands my Totally stupid post.
Sorry for my english... Im just a German ;-)

HELP ME PLEASE!!

Tyle

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi
Autofilter can't deal well with merged/combined fileds. That's the
reason most people suggest to NEVER use merged cells. They will create
this kind of problems using filters, sorting, etc. So I don't think
there's a solution for this

 

[Dave Peterson]

I agree with Frank about not using merged cells. Maybe you can try this against
a copy of your worksheet:

1. Unmerge the all the cells.
2. Fill the blanks in column A with the value of the cell above
(So A5 inherits the value in A4, A6 gets A5, ...)
Debra Dalgleish has some techniques at:
http://www.contextures.com/xlDataEntry02.html
3. Now all the common rows have a common key.
(I'd convert to values, too)
4. If you don't like the way it looks, you can kind of hide those duplicated
values by using conditional formatting.
Select A2:Axxxxx
(with A2 the activecell)
Format|Conditional formatting.
Formula is: A1=A2
Give it a font color to match the fill color (white on white)

Now those cells look blank, but aren't. When you filter, it'll look ok.

If I have a choice, I try to put all information on one row for each record. It
makes processing the data a lot easier--sorting/filtering/pivottables...

And if it looks too wide, I'll hide some columns before I print. (Or just never
print it at all!)

 

[Debra Dalgleish]

Unmerge the cells in column A (Format>Cells, Alignment)
Fill all the blank cells with the data from the filled cell
above -- there are instructions here:
http://www.contextures.com/xlDataEntry02.html
Hide the duplicate headings with conditional formatting:
http://www.contextures.com/xlCondFormat03.html#Duplicate

Now, apply an AutoFilter, and all the applicable rows will be visible.