Hi Dan,

To keep the related items together, they must be in the *same* row. In
your example, Book and Moby Dick have to be in the same cell.

You can prepare this by selecting a group of related items in the
first column and clicking Table Merge Cells. Then select the
matching group of cells in the second column and merge them (you can
just press F4 to repeat the action). Do this for each group of related
items.

After you sort, if you feel you need to return to separate rows, you
can do it with the Table Split Cell command. Unfortunately it won't
be as easy as the merge, since Word's default is to split the entry
into more columns in the same row, rather than more rows in the same
column. You'll have to change the settings in the Split dialog each
time.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 00:39:03 -0800, "Dan Corban"
wrote:

I have a table with two columns. The first column has names of items, each
item in its own row. I indent the items (using styles) if they are related to
the item directly above it. I want to sort this table, keeping the indented
item below the related item. I can't figure out how to do this. The indented
items just get sorted normally and end up separated from the related name.

An example of my table before sorting:
Lamp
Book
Moby Dick
Desk

When I sort, it looks like this:
Book
Desk
Lamp
Moby Dick

I want it to end up looking like this:
Book
Moby Dick
Desk
Lamp

Any idea how I can accomplish this (other than manually sorting)?