Google-sheets – Filter and match multiple columns in Google Sheets

Instead of filter views, I would use the filter command. For example, suppose Sheet1 holds raw data, with A being a character, B the list of "mentioned" chapters, and C the list of "appeared" chapters. You can then add another sheet for "filtered" data, where the user enters chapter number in, e.g., cell A1 and immediately get the list of rows matching that number thanks to the command

=filter(Sheet1!A2:C, regexmatch(Sheet1!B2:B,"\b"&A1&"\b") + regexmatch(Sheet1!C2:C,"\b"&A1&"\b"))

Here, each regexmatch scans its column (B or C) paying attention to word boundaries (\b) so that, e.g., "20,23,25" would not match "3". Addition plays the role of OR operator here.

If you are sharing this, you can allow editing but protect all cells except A1 on the second sheet: this way, the users can only change the chapter number for filtering.

There is a potential drawback: the changes to A1 are actual edits; i.e., what one user does affects everyone. If this is unacceptable, then filter views are the only option. You can circumvent the "OR" issue by creating a new column with

=B2&","C2

i.e., concatenation of columns B and C. Then apply filter views based on that column. However, the filter view will require either

• custom formula with regexmatch as above (not user-friendly at all)
• different format of data to make the condition "text contains..." work: for example, you could format as ,2,4,10,13,16, so that the text to search for would be ,4, (Otherwise, there's the same issue of "13" matching "3".)

To sort a query you simply have to wrap it in SORT.

=SORT(
    QUERY(
        {SheetOne!C3:F;SheetTwo!C3:F;SheetThree!F4:G;SheetFour!F4:G}
    )
    , 1, TRUE)

For example, the above formula takes the data from the sheets inside the query, and then sorts by ascending order from column 1.

This also works well to solve the problem of row splitting, where some rows get split up if you use different queries to pull from rows you intend to keep uniform.