Dave, thanks for responding. I think what you're suggesting will work,
although I'm not sure what "drag it down" means (I'm new to Excel). But if I
put the formula in its own column, I think that would do it. p.s. It would
be an astounding coincidence, but by any chance are you the Dave Peterson who
forty years ago lived on Edgecliff Road and was one of my best friends when I
was a kid?

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

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