Question

In VBA, Excel allows sorting values using the CustomOrder parameter to choose the sequence items are ordered. Unfortunately, the sequence of items is delimited by commas and one of my sort items contains commas. For example, I want to sort the data in the first column by the categories in the second column. The “Air, Land, or Sea” category contains commas.

Data1     Aerospace
Data2     Cyberspace
Data3     Cyberspace
Data4     Air, Land, or Sea
Data5     Aerospace
Data6     Air, Land, or Sea
Data7     Cyberspace

If you record a VBA macro, the code created looks like this:

MyWorksheet.Sort.SortFields.Add Key:=Range( _
    "B:B"), SortOn:=xlSortOnValues, Order:=xlAscending, _
    CustomOrder:= "Cyberspace,Air,Land,or Sea,Aerospace", _
    DataOption:=xlSortNormal  
MyWorksheet.Sort.Apply

So, the custom sort order should be “Cyberspace” then “Air, Land, or Sea”, then “Aerospace”. However, the second category is treated as three categories because of the commas. The rows with “Air, Land, or Sea” get sorted to the bottom because Excel doesn’t find a custom sort match for them.
Is there a way to get CustomOrder to work with a category that contains embedded commas?

I tried putting double quotes around the category and I tried replacing the delimiter commas with semicolons (in the hope Excel would accept a semicolon instead of a comma). Neither worked.

Answer 1

It seems to be missing the Apply. Can you Add

MyWorksheet.Sort.Apply

The custom order you have is working as is in my sample.

EDIT Updated based on OP updated question

Edit the macro to the following – using an array for the OrderCustom parameter.

Dim oWorksheet As Worksheet
Set oWorksheet = ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets("Sheet1")
Dim oRangeSort As Range
Dim oRangeKey As Range

' one range that includes all colums do sort
Set oRangeSort = oWorksheet.Range("A1:B9")
' start of column with keys to sort
Set oRangeKey = oWorksheet.Range("B1")

' custom sort order
Dim sCustomList(1 To 3) As String
sCustomList(1) = "Cyberspace"
sCustomList(2) = "Aerospace"
sCustomList(3) = "Air, Land, or Sea"

Application.AddCustomList ListArray:=sCustomList
' use this if you want a list on the spreadsheet to sort by
' Application.AddCustomList ListArray:=Range("D1:D3")

oWorksheet.Sort.SortFields.Clear
oRangeSort.Sort Key1:=oRangeKey, Order1:=xlAscending, Header:=xlGuess, _
    OrderCustom:=Application.CustomListCount + 1, MatchCase:=False, _
    Orientation:=xlTopToBottom, DataOption1:=xlSortNormal

' clean up
Application.DeleteCustomList Application.CustomListCount
Set oWorksheet = Nothing