The short answer is no. In any event, what it seems you're really intending is to sort by cell, regardless of column/row, from left to right, top to bottom. You can't do that.

What you could do is to configure the page layout for multiple columns, with only a single-column table. As you add/delete entries, you do so by adding/deleting rows. If you add/delete a row somewhere, Word will automatically adjust all the following cell positions. And, if need be, you can sort the table. A table under this scenario will necessarily be arranged vertically, then across, though you could change both the page orientation and the cell orientation to give the appearance of being arranged horizontally, then down.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]