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

doc filter merged cell 1

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

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

doc filter merged cell 2

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

doc filter merged cell 3

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:

doc filter merged cell 4

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:

doc filter merged cell 5

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:

doc filter merged cell 6

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

doc filter merged cell 7

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:

doc filter merged cell 8

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:

doc filter merged cell 8

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  doc filter merged cell 2 button to select the cell value you need, see screenshot:

doc filter merged cell 8

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

doc filter merged cell 8

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

doc filter merged cell 8

Click to Download Kutools for Excel and free trial Now!

Demo: Filter all related data from merged cells in Excel

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  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Woeri · 23 days ago
    I'm not one who comments a lot, but this worked like a charm and was clearly explained. Thanks!!
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Swapnil · 26 days ago
    Thanku so much....this came like a big rescue for me.....
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Jean · 9 months ago
    Muchas gracias, excelente aporte
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Heisenbeerg · 1 years ago
    Nice solution
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Kans · 1 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..?
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Vish · 1 years ago
    Thanks a ton! This was exactly the issue that i had and was able to solve because of your explanation.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Tobi · 2 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 · 2 years ago
    thank you so much
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Bingo · 2 years ago
    you're a hero
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    riyaz · 2 years ago
    Thank you so Much
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    geemoney · 2 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
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Kishore · 2 years ago
    Great.......
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    sri · 3 years ago
    Great Help. Thank u so much... :)
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Marco Talin · 3 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).
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Nicola · 3 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 · 3 years ago
    this help me a lot!thanks
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    HOOOOOOMAN · 3 years ago
    That 's great
    You solved all my problem.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Bill Gates · 3 years ago
    This is an elegant solution. Many thanks.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Virginie · 3 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...
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Matvey · 3 years ago
    2 simple words:

    THANK YOU!
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Bharghav · 3 years ago
    Nice Tip.

    Thanks a Ton....!
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    jafir khan Niazi · 3 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
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Anita Rajan · 4 years ago
    This was very helpful. The detailed diagrammatic exampled assisted a lot. Good job
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Paul · 4 years ago
    Very good and useful explanation. Thank you for the effort.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Srinu · 4 years ago
    very helpful to me thanks for saving my time, it really very helpful to learn easily once again thanks.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    michael · 4 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?
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Raghu · 4 years ago
    Awesome explanation.
    Work perfectly. Thank you so much
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    raveendran · 4 years ago
    first its good example.
    But if we add new value again we have to do same work
    • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
      Jorge Sabori · 4 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?
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Jorge Sabori · 4 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 !
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    ANYAHAN23 · 4 years ago
    Amazinggg .. been looking for this tutorial! :)

    KUDOS!
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Tengku · 4 years ago
    Work perfectly. Thank you so much
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Saravanan Elumalai · 4 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.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Abdul · 5 years ago
    Wah...Excellent Solution Thanks :)
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    IT · 5 years ago
    thanks for this tutorial:)
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Paul H · 5 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 · 5 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.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    ElDiablo · 5 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 · 5 years ago
    Excellent, Thanks Man
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    jaz · 5 years ago
    Excellennt...thank you so much
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    cristina · 5 years ago
    This is genius. Thank you so much for sharing.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Kavi · 5 years ago
    Thanks for the help... Great info... :-)
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    Bryan R · 5 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 · 5 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 · 5 years ago
    good soultion. thanks....
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    Stevec · 5 years ago
    Brilliant! Such a good clear explanation - saved hours of work-arounds - thank you!
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Anant · 5 years ago
    Thanks for your help, It really works
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    Rob Smith · 5 years ago
    Brilliant solution. Thanks!
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    Peter · 5 years ago
    Unfortunately every time you will add new row you need to un-merge (un-format), fill out the value for blank cell and them format again. Mankind should move to some more sophisticated tools than excel for reasons like this :)
    • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
      Bala · 3 years ago
      [quote name="Peter"]Unfortunately every time you will add new row you need to un-merge (un-format), fill out the value for blank cell and them format again. Mankind should move to some more sophisticated tools than excel for reasons like this :)[/quote]

      I have the same problem. If any one has an answer please let me know.
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    Belinda · 5 years ago
    Brilliant! Thanks! I thought I'd never get this sorted.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Tarek · 5 years ago
    Great job!
    Many thanks