On Wed, 7 Apr 2010 05:42:01 -0700, Shazza
wrote:

This is some sample data of what informaion i am using
A1 A2 A3 A4
A5
Hunter's, Charles, Smith, Abrasive Wheels Regs 1/2-day course, 26-May-09
Hunter's, David Jones, Abrasive Wheels Regs 1/2-day course, 26-May-09
Leslie Ltd, Nigel Will Abrasive Wheels Regs 1/2-day course,
10-Nov-09
Johnston Ltd, James, Smith, Asbestos Awareness 1/2-day course 05-Nov-09
Johnston Ltd, Ivor, Smith Asbestos Awareness 1/2-day course 05-Nov-09
Amenity, Ross Jones Asbestos Awareness 1/2-day course 17-Dec-09
Garriock, Bruce, Willia Basic First Aid (1 day course)
30-Jan-09
Garriock, Debbie Smith Basic First Aid (1 day course)
30-Jan-09

I need a formula that will count all the courses that have run and as you
can see from the dates there can be several names set to one particular date.
I do not want it to pick up on the same date. ie Asbestos Awareness was run
twice so i need it to count it as 2. Basically i do not want to count how
many people attended the course i want to know how many courses run.

If you are willing to use a Pivot Table, it won't matter whether there are
multiple courses on the same date.

For example, with your data in Columns A:D

Company Student Course Dates

add a fifth column and label it something like NumCourses

E2: =IF(SUMPRODUCT(($C$2:C2=C2)*($D$2:D2=D2))1,0,1)

Then, with your cursor in the data, Insert/Pivot Table (for Excel 2007; I don't
recall which menu Pivot Tables are on in the earlier versions; probably the
Data menu).

In the Pivot Table, drag "Course" to the Row area; and NumCourses to the Values
or Data area.

Format to taste.
--ron