On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:22:01 -0700, Lee wrote:

If the cell contains - r1, r2, r3 count=3 i.e r 3 times
if the cell contains d11,d12,d78.d56- I want to count number of times d
appears a cell.


First, create a Named Formula
Names in Workbook: Seq
Refers to: =ROW(INDEX($1:$65536,1,1):INDEX($1:$65536,255,1))

A1: your data
B1: letter to find (e.g. d)
C1: =SUMPRODUCT(--(MID(A1,seq,1)=B1))
--ron