if I understand you correctly

=SUM(IF(B1:B100="X",1,))

should help and give you the toal of active personnel (if X's are in
col B)

CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER (instead of using ENTER only) this formula as this is
an array formula


On 11 Gru, 21:40, floyd.anderson
wrote:
I am trying to build an active personnel spreadsheet. With the individuals
names listed in column "A", I need to give "X" a numerical value so that when
I add the X to account for this individual it will give the total active at
the bottom. I know the formula for the simple addition and understand how to
do that, however I can not figure out how to give a text a numerical value.