Try this kind of formula:

=SUMPRODUCT((A1:A1000<"")/COUNTIF(A1:A1000,A1:A1000&""))

Adjust range references to suit your situation.

Is that something you can work with?
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"Bobby" wrote:

I have a huge data extract that i'm trying to sort through. The first thing
I want to do is count the number of unique entries in a given column. For
example, in my extract a "name" comes up many times - i want to count how
many "unique" names I have on my data sheet, in a specific column. I'm
pretty sure this is easily done with pivot tables - but can't figure it out
myself. (the pivot table keeps summing stuff up - it's not "counting").