In a helper column enter:

=(LEFT(A1,2)="13")*1
and use countif on this column "=1"
--
Gary's Student


"raigo" wrote:

Hello, i am having trouble with the countif function. I need to count the
cells which begin with a certain numeric phrase. For example, i want excel to
count cells that start with "13". Then i would enter the following code:
=COUNTIF(A1:A10;"13*"), but it doesn`t work. It works fine with words but
gets in trouble when cells contain numbers. Is it a bug or is there something
wrong with the formula?

Example:
213
1345
13,34
13.44
1413

It should count cells 2, 3 and 4 because they start with 13. The answer
should be 3...

Thank You,
Raigo Tingas