Hi all, is there a simple function that will allow me to count the number of
"?" in a column of data? I have a longish column that contains only "y",
"n",blanks, or "?". I can use COUNTIF functions to count the number of "y"
and "n", COUNTBLANK to count the number of blank cells, but if I enter a
COUNTIF using "?", it returns a count of all cells containing data. Help
please! Regards, Robin

=COUNTIF(A:A,"~?")

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

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

"Robin Blackwell" wrote in message
...
Hi all, is there a simple function that will allow me to count the number
of
"?" in a column of data? I have a longish column that contains only "y",
"n",blanks, or "?". I can use COUNTIF functions to count the number of "y"
and "n", COUNTBLANK to count the number of blank cells, but if I enter a
COUNTIF using "?", it returns a count of all cells containing data. Help
please! Regards, Robin

Many thanks Bob!


"Bob Phillips" wrote in message
...
=COUNTIF(A:A,"~?")

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

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

"Robin Blackwell" wrote in message
...
Hi all, is there a simple function that will allow me to count the number
of
"?" in a column of data? I have a longish column that contains only "y",
"n",blanks, or "?". I can use COUNTIF functions to count the number of
"y"
and "n", COUNTBLANK to count the number of blank cells, but if I enter a
COUNTIF using "?", it returns a count of all cells containing data. Help
please! Regards, Robin

Hi Bob,

What does "~" do here?

Thankyou

Shail


Bob Phillips wrote:
=COUNTIF(A:A,"~?")

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

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

"Robin Blackwell" wrote in message
...
Hi all, is there a simple function that will allow me to count the number
of
"?" in a column of data? I have a longish column that contains only "y",
"n",blanks, or "?". I can use COUNTIF functions to count the number of "y"
and "n", COUNTBLANK to count the number of blank cells, but if I enter a
COUNTIF using "?", it returns a count of all cells containing data. Help
please! Regards, Robin

It is an escape character, it tells Excel not to treat the following
character as a special character (? is the single wildcard character) but as
a normal ASCII character.

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

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

"shail" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi Bob,

What does "~" do here?

Thankyou

Shail


Bob Phillips wrote:
=COUNTIF(A:A,"~?")

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

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

"Robin Blackwell" wrote in message
...
Hi all, is there a simple function that will allow me to count the
number
of
"?" in a column of data? I have a longish column that contains only
"y",
"n",blanks, or "?". I can use COUNTIF functions to count the number of
"y"
and "n", COUNTBLANK to count the number of blank cells, but if I enter
a
COUNTIF using "?", it returns a count of all cells containing data.
Help
please! Regards, Robin

Thankyou Bob, for sharing the knowledge.

Shail

Bob Phillips wrote:
It is an escape character, it tells Excel not to treat the following
character as a special character (? is the single wildcard character) but as
a normal ASCII character.

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

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

"shail" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi Bob,

What does "~" do here?

Thankyou

Shail


Bob Phillips wrote:
=COUNTIF(A:A,"~?")

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

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

"Robin Blackwell" wrote in message
...
Hi all, is there a simple function that will allow me to count the
number
of
"?" in a column of data? I have a longish column that contains only
"y",
"n",blanks, or "?". I can use COUNTIF functions to count the number of
"y"
and "n", COUNTBLANK to count the number of blank cells, but if I enter
a
COUNTIF using "?", it returns a count of all cells containing data.
Help
please! Regards, Robin