On Mon, 4 Feb 2008 06:21:45 -0800 (PST), rguerrie wrote:

Perhaps I am not seeing something here? If counta(a1:a23) evaluates
to zero, shouldn't counta(a1:a23,"x") (with or without the quotation
marks--same results) also evaluate to zero?

No, because COUNTA is also evaluating "x" as a separate argument. For example,

=COUNTA(A1:A23,x,y) will evaluate to 2, with nothing in A1:A23
--ron