It might take up to a few hundred steps
The solution 'bj' posted works if the number of cells is limited (like in
the example), but is very laborious if the column contains lots of cells

"Bernie Deitrick" wrote:

Maarten,

How many steps might it take? Always 3 or less? Or many hundreds?

That will impact the possible solutions.

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP


"Maarten" wrote in message
...
Hello,
I am looking for a method in Excel to count the number of steps one should
take through a column with numbers in order to reach a certain threshold
value. Example: if cells A1:A8 contain 1, 2, 1, 3, 6, 1, 1, 2
How can I calculate in the next column (B1:B8) for each cell the number of
steps one should take through column A in order to reach that the sum of
the
next x steps is = 4?
In the previous example the result should be (B1:B8): 3 (1+2+1), 3
(2+1+3),
2 (1+3), 2 (3+6), 1 (6), 3 (1+1+2), #N/A, #N/A

Can somebody help me?
Many thanks,
Maarten