Sort Excel error message

Question

What does "To do this, all the merged cells need to be the same size." mean? Every cell in every column and row the same size width and height?

Answer 1

Hi Susan,

It appears that you might have accidentally introduced a merged cell into the range you are trying to sort. A merged cell would include more than one row or column, which makes the logic behind sorting fail. There's no logical way to tell the sort feature what do with a cell that spans more than one row or column.

My question to you is, do you intentionally have merged cells, or was this an accident?

There's an easy way to remove all merged cells from a worksheet. Click the Select All button in the upper left corner of the worksheet, then on the Home tab of the Ribbon, in the Alignment group choose Merge & Center > Unmerge Cells. Otherwise, select the range you want to remove merged cells from and use Unmerge Cells.

Answer 2

Hi

Thank you for posting the thread on our forum.

1. If you got this error message, which mean that you may encounter an Excel worksheets that has merged cells that you don’t know about. If any column contains a merged cell, you won't be able to sort that column independently.

2. Following the steps below, you can find all the merged cells in your worksheet and then unmerge those cells .

• ClickHome>Find & Select>Find.
• ClickOptions>Format.
• ClickAlignment>Merge cells>OK.
• ClickFind Allto see a list of all merged cells in your worksheet.
• When you click an item in the list, Excel selects the merged cell in your worksheet. You can now unmerge the cells.

3. For more detailed information about unmerge cells, you can refer to Merge and unmerge cells (microsoft.com)

If my understanding is incorrect, please feel free to post back to provide more detailed information to us so that we can understand better.

Really appreciate your patience and understanding.

Best regards,

Stacey

Answer 3

The reply from Stacey Fang might be helpful if you were using a version of Excel for Windows but his/her #2 simply cannot be done in EXCEL FOR MAC... The Find options referred to do not exist in the Mac product.

The reference to Merged Cells is on target, though. Merged cells will create all sorts off obstructions to Sorting as well as many other features of the program & often have been known to cause irreconcilable workbook corruption. To paraphrase a long time authority on Excel: Merged cells are spawn of the devil.

Answer 4

Hi

Sorry for my misunderstanding that you're using the Excel for Windows in my first reply.

As I mentioned in my first reply, if you got this error message, which mean that you may encounter an Excel worksheets that has merged cells that you don’t know about. If any column contains a merged cell, you won't be able to sort that column independently.

To resolve this , you can find all merge cells and unmerge them from the worksheet：

Open the worksheet>Home>Merge & Center>Unmerge Cells

For more detailed information, you can refer to Merge and unmerge cells (microsoft.com)

Meanwhile, you also can refer the replies by Bob and Jim. they also provided more detailed information and idea about your situation.

If there have any misunderstanding, please feel free to popst back and let us know.

Your patience and understanding will be highly appreciated!!

Best regards,

Stacey