You need to confirm that formula with control+shift+enter instead of the
usual enter.

However, the following just needs enter and less costly qua time:

=SUM(COUNTIF(C5:C86,"?*"),COUNTIF(E5:E86,"?*"),COU NTIF(G5:G86,"?*"))

Marc Todd wrote:
Using this formula:
{=SUM(IF(ISTEXT(C5:C86),1,0),IF(ISTEXT(E5:E86),1,0 ),IF(ISTEXT(G5:G86),1,0))},
the formula pallette displays "Formula results = 15". That is the number of
Text items I physically counted. However when I select "OK," the number "0"
is recorded in the cell instead of "15." I checked the Cell Formatting and
it was set to General. I tried "Help" but it was not there or I just didn"t
know where to look. Can you help me?