Try with

=COUNTIF(TheRange, "p")

where TheRange is a reference to the range that contains the p's and h's.

--
Regards

Juan Pablo González

"NYDIA" wrote in message
...
i have a spreadsheet that is used for a monthly
attendance. There are codes (p=present, h=hospital stay
etc). I want to create a formula that will count all the
p's

example
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 TOTAL
john smith p p p p p p h h p p p h h h p p p p 10

so john was in the program on 10 days of the 5

can you help me with the formula? Any help is greatly
appreciated