On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:12:05 -0800, LJ wrote:

I have a column that data will be entered in and I need to have a cell that
will increase numerically with the number of cells that have a number in it
in the column. for example there are five cells with data. the summary cell
should say 5 when I enter another cell of data the summary cell should change
to 6

If the data is numeric:

=count(a:a)

If the data is textual:

=counta(a:a)

(Substitute your column to test for the a:a).
--ron