you're working with an external file already.
why not keep that closed and use a query or a query based pivot?

--
keepITcool
| www.XLsupport.com | keepITcool chello nl | amsterdam


pomalley wrote :

Im trying to count the number of products in column B for only
those that contain the characters €œvss€� or €œnggf€� which
apprear at the end of the product name. The products are listed as
toy-vss, toy-nggf, and toy-ita. It appears that the formula below
works, but only looks at the €œvss€� query and ignores the
€œnggf€� query. Is there a way to combine the query so if
€œvss€� or €œnggf€� are in Column B, it will count those products
and give me the total number of occurences? Im thinking combining
the names in a string, but have not been successful in combining them.

=SUMPRODUCT
(--IF((RIGHT('[TDS Wkly Rpt 2005.xls]2005 Data'!$B$2:$B$251,3)="VSS"),
--IF((RIGHT('[TDS Wkly Rpt 2005.xls]2005 Data'!$B$2:$B$251,4)="NGGF"),
--(DATE(YEAR('[TDS Wkly Rpt 2005.xls]2005
Data'!$A$2:$A$251),MONTH('[TDS Wkly Rpt 2005.xls]2005
Data'!$A$2:$A$251),1)=$FX$3), --(LEFT('[TDS Wkly Rpt 2005.xls]2005
Data'!$AA$2:$AA$251,5)="Other"))))