Count cells that contain text

excel count formula

If you need to count the number of cells that contain text (i.e. not numbers, not errors, not blank), you can do so with the COUNTIF function and a wildcard. In the generic form of the formula (above), rng is a range of cells, and "*" is a wildcard matching any number of characters.

In the example, the active cell contains this formula:

=COUNTIF(B4:B8,"*")

Here's how the formula works:

COUNTIF counts the number of cells that match the supplied criteria. In this case, the criteria is supplied as the wildcard character "*" which matches any number of text characters.

A few notes:

• The logical values TRUE and FALSE are not counted as text
• Numbers are not counted by "*" unless they are entered as text
• A blank cell that begins with an apostrophe (') will be counted.

You can also use SUMPRODUCT to count text values along with the function ISTEXT like so:

=SUMPRODUCT(--ISTEXT(rng))

The double hyphen (called a double unary) coerces the result of ISTEXT from a logical value of TRUE or FALSE, to 1's and 0's. SUMPRODUCT then sums these values together to get a result.

Web : excel