You can't use the autosum feature in this way. Try this formula

=COUNTA(A1:A6)-COUNT(A1:A6)
or
=COUNTA(A:A)-COUNT(A:A)
(for the whole column)

"sdmccabe" wrote:

I want to get a total (count) of a column of non-numeric characters €“ each
time I use the auto sum feature and select count, the cursor is placed on the
first cell of the column waiting for a formula. What am I doing wrong?