However, I can't get it to work in
three dimensions (multiple sheets).

Therein lies the problem!

There are very few functions that work on 3D references.

Biff

wrote in message
ps.com...
On Mar 8, 2:37 pm, "T. Valko" wrote:
First problem:

Assume:

A253 = this

Sheet1 I28 = this
Sheet2 I28 = is this
Sheet3 I28 = is this all

The wildcard version result = 3 which is correct.

Second problem: Good luck with that one! I would suggest that you put one
value per cell instead of x, x, z all in one cell. Then you could just
expand the range in the Countif:

.....&"'!I28:N28"),.....

Biff

Thanks for the reply.

PROBLEM 1
I just rechecked and yes, mistake was mine, it seems the cell
reference for the test wasn't updating and I was checking for terms
where they wouldn't possibly exist. Multiple versions works
fantastically.

PROBLEM 2
ARGH, not the response I was looking for. I have been struggling with
this for about 3.5 hours now to no avail. There seems to be a
workable solution involving length that I found "(total length of
cells in a range) - (total length of cells substituting nothing for a
specific term)/(term length). However, I can't get it to work in
three dimensions (multiple sheets).

There HAS to be a way to do this... my eternal gratitude to the person
that can figure it out!


-rt