Does this mean that there is only one " dist" or "bp" in those 5 columns?

if yes, you could use a formula like:

=if(countif(a1:e1," dist")0," dist","")&if(countif(a1:e1,"bp")0,"bp","")
drag it down
Then sort by that helper column.



Neil wrote:

I know this is a bad design, but in my worksheet I want to sort using text
entries (for example," dist" or "bp") that are (or may be) located in five
separate columns. The entries have the same meaning regardless of column,
and I want to capture all of the entries in a single sort. Is this possible,
or do I need to go to a relational database? I don't want to construct a
worksheet with separate columns for each entry type because there are simply
too many types. Thanks.

--

Dave Peterson