in excel how do I count cells that begin with specific text. Ex: in a
column with 100 entries, I want to count the number of cells that have the
letters "app" from the word approved as the first three characters in the cell

=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEFT(A1:A100)="app"))

"mmer at steelcase" wrote:

in excel how do I count cells that begin with specific text. Ex: in a
column with 100 entries, I want to count the number of cells that have the
letters "app" from the word approved as the first three characters in the cell

=COUNTIF(A:A,"app*")

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct)

"Sloth" wrote in message
...
=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEFT(A1:A100)="app"))

"mmer at steelcase" wrote:

in excel how do I count cells that begin with specific text. Ex: in a
column with 100 entries, I want to count the number of cells that have
the
letters "app" from the word approved as the first three characters in
the cell

this works since I am looking for the beginning of the text. I thought I
would need to do something with LEFT function. this solution is simpler.
thank you

"Bob Phillips" wrote:

=COUNTIF(A:A,"app*")

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct)

"Sloth" wrote in message
...
=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEFT(A1:A100)="app"))

"mmer at steelcase" wrote:

in excel how do I count cells that begin with specific text. Ex: in a
column with 100 entries, I want to count the number of cells that have
the
letters "app" from the word approved as the first three characters in
the cell

this didn't work for me. do the 2 dashes in front of LEFT mean something

"Sloth" wrote:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEFT(A1:A100)="app"))

"mmer at steelcase" wrote:

in excel how do I count cells that begin with specific text. Ex: in a
column with 100 entries, I want to count the number of cells that have the
letters "app" from the word approved as the first three characters in the cell

"mmer at steelcase" wrote in
message ...
this didn't work for me. do the 2 dashes in front of LEFT mean something


See http://www.xldynamic.com/source/xld.SUMPRODUCT.html for a detailed
explanation.

At first glance, I thought that would work. However, I noticed in your reply
that the ,3 was left out of the left function. If you don't specify the
number of characters to return, left defaults to 1 (if I am not mistaken.)

The -- coerces logical values (true or false) to numbers. As true evaluates
to 1 (and false to 0) -true = -1 (and -false = -0, which of course is 0.)
Applying the negative again changes the -1 to positive 1 and the -0 to 0.

So, although I didn't test it, I would guess if you put ,3 after the 100 in
the formula, it may return the correct result.

BTW, I just checked with false in a cell, D2, and -D2 returned 0 (not -0)
fwiw.

--
Kevin Vaughn


"mmer at steelcase" wrote:

this didn't work for me. do the 2 dashes in front of LEFT mean something

"Sloth" wrote:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEFT(A1:A100)="app"))

"mmer at steelcase" wrote:

in excel how do I count cells that begin with specific text. Ex: in a
column with 100 entries, I want to count the number of cells that have the
letters "app" from the word approved as the first three characters in the cell