How to filter all related data from merged cells in Excel?

Supposing there is a column of merged cells in your data range, and now, you need to filter this column with merged cells to show all the rows which are related with each merged cell as following screenshots shown. In excel, the Filter feature allows you to filter only the first item which associated with the merged cells, in this article, I will talk about how to filter all related data from merged cells in Excel?

Filter all related data from merged cells in Excel

To solve this job, you need to do following operations step by step.

1. Copy your merged cells data to other blank column in order to keep the original merged cell formatting.

2. Select your original merged cell (A2:A15), and then click Home > Merged & Center to cancel the merged cells, see screenshots:

3. Keep the selection status of A2: A15, and then go to Home tab, and click Find & Select > Go To Special, in the Go To Special dialog box, select Blanks option under Select section,see screenshot:

4. All the blank cells have been selected, then type = and press Up arrow key on keyboard, and then press Ctrl + Enter keys to fill all the selected blank cells with the value above, see screenshot:

5. Then you need to apply the formatting of your pasted merged cells in step 1, select the merged cells E2:E15, and click Home > Format Painter, see screenshot:

6. And then drag the Format Painter to fill from A2 to A15 to apply the original merged formatting to this range.

7. At last, you can apply the Filter function to filter the item that you want, please click Data > Filter, and choose your needed filter criteria, click OK to filter the merged cells with all their related data, see screenshot:

Filter all related data from merged cells in Excel with Kutools for Excel

The above mehtod may be somewhat difficult for you, here, with Kutools for Excel's Filter Merge Cells feature, you can quickly filter all relative cells of the specific merged cell. Click to download Kutools for Excel! Please see the following demo:

After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as this:

1. Select the column that you want to filter the specific merged cell, and then click Kutools Plus > Special Filter > Special Filter, see screenshot:

2. In the Special Filter dialog box, select Format option, then choose Merge Cells from the drop down list, and then enter the text value you want to filter, or click button to select the cell value you need, see screenshot:

3. Then click Ok button, and a prompt box is popped out to remind you how many cells matched the criteria, see screenshot:

4. And then click OK button, all relative cells of the specific merged cell have been filtered out as following screenshot shown:

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Demo: Filter all related data from merged cells in Excel

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Miguel · 6 months ago
Muy útil y perfectamente explicado. Gracias
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Joyce · 8 months ago
Top! Funciona perfeitamente! Muito útil! Obrigada!
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Aakash · 1 years ago
This was really helpful thanks
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Woeri · 1 years ago
I'm not one who comments a lot, but this worked like a charm and was clearly explained. Thanks!!
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Swapnil · 1 years ago
Thanku so much....this came like a big rescue for me.....
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Jean · 2 years ago
Muchas gracias, excelente aporte
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Heisenbeerg · 2 years ago
Nice solution
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Kans · 2 years ago
In the above example, if I filter as ORDER < 300 (column B), the border after each PRODUCT (column A) is lost.. How can it be achieved..?
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Vish · 2 years ago
Thanks a ton! This was exactly the issue that i had and was able to solve because of your explanation.
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Tobi · 3 years ago
What if your data has empty merged cells? Something like:

|Column A | Column B|
| Data 1 | bla |
| | blubb |
------------------------------
| Data 3 | bla bla |
| | blubb blubb |
------------------------------
| Data 5 | |
| | |
------------------------------
| Data 7 | bla blubb |

How can you solve this?
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krunal · 3 years ago
thank you so much
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Bingo · 3 years ago
you're a hero
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riyaz · 3 years ago
Thank you so Much
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geemoney · 3 years ago
Thank you for tutorial. I am using this for a dashboard template, however when you add a new row you loose the ability to filter correctly? Is there a workaround for this? Something simple that someone with little excel knowledge can do?

thanks
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Kishore · 4 years ago
Great.......
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sri · 4 years ago
Great Help. Thank u so much... :)
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Marco Talin · 4 years ago
For those wondering why this works, it's because the merge button in excel executes the "Merge" command, which inherently involves deleting data in other cells. Using Format Painter just applies the merged format.

To put it in simple terms, think of it as the merge button on the Excel Ribbon doing two things:
1) Merge cells
2) Delete excess data

By using the Format Painter, you're just doing step one of that process without doing step two. You achieve the same results if you "Paste Special-Formats Only". Also, since the "sub cells" refer back to the first cell for their value, they will all get changed when you change the value of the cell, since changing the value of a merged group of cells only changes the top-left cell in the group.

I still have yet to find a quick way of doing this without VBA shenanigans. I really wish Microsoft included a merge option that didn't erase the other values. They give you the warning up front that they'll delete your data. You think it wouldn't be too much trouble to add an option to change that (at least, as of v2013).
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Nicola · 4 years ago
HELP!!

I have made a spread sheet, row A contains merged cells then the next 3 rows contain the week day, the date and 2 columns with other data so there are 14 columns below the merged cells in the first row. I am trying to add a filter to the top row so that all information that will be entered into the 7 columns below will be included in the drop down filter menu as just now it just includes the information in the first column.

I would appreciate any help with this!!

Thank you!!
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ying · 4 years ago
this help me a lot!thanks
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HOOOOOOMAN · 4 years ago
That 's great
You solved all my problem.
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Bill Gates · 4 years ago
This is an elegant solution. Many thanks.
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Virginie · 4 years ago
Hi,

Is it possible to paste this conditional format to new entries?
I've applied your method in my file, but each time I create other raws with merged cells, the format does not get pasted...
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Matvey · 4 years ago
2 simple words:

THANK YOU!
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Bharghav · 5 years ago
Nice Tip.

Thanks a Ton....!
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jafir khan Niazi · 5 years ago
I've have merged rows in my data at the top and at the bottom . I want to sort my data from largest to smallest without unmerging my top and bottom rows because these merged rows have no data instead they are just headings and at the bottom they are total rows
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Anita Rajan · 5 years ago
This was very helpful. The detailed diagrammatic exampled assisted a lot. Good job
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Paul · 5 years ago
Very good and useful explanation. Thank you for the effort.
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Srinu · 5 years ago
very helpful to me thanks for saving my time, it really very helpful to learn easily once again thanks.
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michael · 5 years ago
It works, but for some reason in big files, when I use the filter, the whole file freezes up. does anyone know why?
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Raghu · 5 years ago
Awesome explanation.
Work perfectly. Thank you so much
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raveendran · 5 years ago
first its good example.
But if we add new value again we have to do same work
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  Jorge Sabori · 5 years ago
  
  [quote name="raveendran"]first its good example.
  But if we add new value again we have to do same work[/quote]
  Do you have any better solution?
  
  Reply
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Jorge Sabori · 5 years ago
Awesome! Thanks a bunch! Even when i had to read other posts simultaneously since i'm on Mac, still this was the key to everything. If i had a million dollars i'd share half with you :P !
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ANYAHAN23 · 6 years ago
Amazinggg .. been looking for this tutorial! :)

KUDOS!
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Tengku · 6 years ago
Work perfectly. Thank you so much
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Saravanan Elumalai · 6 years ago
How to filter all related data from merged cells in Excel? Firstly Thanks!!! this worked perfectly. the steps are very clear and resolved my problem. But do we have any macros for this because the sheet i'm working is continuously updated by my team so i need to do this procedure every day or whenever who pulls this report, So i need macro for this. can anyone help. Thank you very much.
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Abdul · 6 years ago
Wah...Excellent Solution Thanks :)
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IT · 6 years ago
thanks for this tutorial:)
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Paul H · 6 years ago
First of all, many thanks for this. This is the perfect solution to an irritating problem, and the only real answer to this question I have seen anywhere.

I am curious, though, about if there is any other way to achieve the same final result without using the format painter. It seems very odd to me (almost like an unintended error on Microsoft's part) that the format painter would lead to a different final result than can be achieved through ribbon buttons/menus/etc. I always thought the format painter was a convenient shortcut, but I had never previously seen it lead a to a result that can't be achieved any other way.

I experimented with this quite a bit, and I noticed that when the above procedure is used, the individual cells retain their values after the merge is applied via the format painter. Actually, this is true even if the cell values were different (which can be dangerous because it could lead one to believe they are referencing the visible value in the merged cell, when in fact the underlying value can be different).

Without the format painter, merging cells causes all but the top left cell values to be replaced with 0.

I'm glad this little anomaly exists because it will greatly improve the functionality of my spreadsheet, but I would still appreciate it if anyone has more explanation.
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Andy · 6 years ago
Doesn't work, when I filter again it only displays one row.
At least when dealing with multiple columns, with different merge-levels.. And yes I made sure that when unmerging the text still remains in all cells. Frustrating.. had hopes with my precious excel but seems I'll have to rethink the whole thing.
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ElDiablo · 6 years ago
First of all, thanks for this awesome solution. It certainly does the trick. But I'm wondering if anyone can explain why the format painter causes the merged cells to keep their underlying value while the regular merge function does not. There seems to be no way to achieve this result without using the format painter, which is odd (I always thought the format painter was only for convenience - anything it does can also be achieved via other means).

I tried a little experiment as follows:
-Cells A1 through A4 merged using the "Merge & Center" button. Entered "ABC" as the value.
-Cells B1 and B2 had "ABC" as the value, but B3 and B4 had "DEF" as the value. Then I applied the format painter from A1:A4 to B1:B4.
- Entered formulas elsewhere in the sheet that referenced each of the individual cells. Here are the results:
=A1 displays "ABC"
=A2 displays 0
=A3 displays 0
=A4 displays 0
=B1 displays "ABC"
=B2 displays "ABC"
=B3 displays "DEF"
=B4 displays "DEF"

So even though B1:B4 appear merged and only display the value in B1 ("ABC"), Excel is keeping the original individual values for each cell in memory (even if they don't match!). And the only way to achieve seems to be with the format painter. Very odd.

I would be very grateful if anyone has more thoughts on this.
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Me · 6 years ago
Excellent, Thanks Man
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jaz · 6 years ago
Excellennt...thank you so much
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cristina · 6 years ago
This is genius. Thank you so much for sharing.
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Kavi · 6 years ago
Thanks for the help... Great info... :-)
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Bryan R · 6 years ago
That's an excellent solution thank you!

Is there anyway to ensure the information from the merged cell is copied when filtered? I seem to just get a blank cell copied

any help would be greatly appreciated
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Jackie · 6 years ago
This was a HUGE help to me on a big project. This is a great skill I will utilize in the future. Thank you for explaining it so well.
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Vijay · 6 years ago
good soultion. thanks....
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Stevec · 6 years ago
Brilliant! Such a good clear explanation - saved hours of work-arounds - thank you!
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Anant · 6 years ago
Thanks for your help, It really works
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Rob Smith · 7 years ago
Brilliant solution. Thanks!
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