I think your problem is selecting the whole of column F
Sumproduct cannot take whole column, only a defined range.
=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEN(F1:F7)<12)) rturned an answer of 2 with your data

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Regards
Roger Govier
"vipa2000" wrote in message
...
I have the following data. i need to count those recorrds where there
length
is less than 12 characters.

I used =SUMPRODUCT(--(LEN(Sheet1!F:F)<12)) but excel falls down saying the
cells are formatted as text or contain an apostrophe. i tried to format
the
cells as general but still won't work. Other users will use this so i
don't
want a lot of user intervention.

FunctLocation
12087359305PV1525
12087325530DRIVE
12087350101
12087320109PV4201
12087325350PIPING
12087325001
12087325759LR-F01

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Regards vipa