Counting cell entries
 

Dear experts,
I have one column, C. In this column is a VLOOKUP to another range of cells
in another workbook. The Lookup returns whatever comment has been typed into
a particular cell on the other sheet. I want to count the number of times
comments have been entered and display it underneath the column C.

When I use COUNTA, it returns the total number of cells because the vlookup
returns the number zero if there is no comment so this gets counted as an
entry. The comments I want to count are entries like Fail, resit. Not
everyone gets a comment. How can I be more specific about what I want COUNTA
to count i.e. don't count zeros.
Thanks
Martina
PS I could count the entries from the original sheet but I just wanted to
know if it was possible to count entries in columns which have vlookups
creating the data.

Counting cell entries
 

Try this:

=COUNTIF(C1:C100,"*")

This will count *only* TEXT entries.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"jc132568" wrote in message
...
Dear experts,
I have one column, C. In this column is a VLOOKUP to another range of
cells
in another workbook. The Lookup returns whatever comment has been typed
into
a particular cell on the other sheet. I want to count the number of times
comments have been entered and display it underneath the column C.

When I use COUNTA, it returns the total number of cells because the
vlookup
returns the number zero if there is no comment so this gets counted as an
entry. The comments I want to count are entries like Fail, resit. Not
everyone gets a comment. How can I be more specific about what I want
COUNTA
to count i.e. don't count zeros.
Thanks
Martina
PS I could count the entries from the original sheet but I just wanted to
know if it was possible to count entries in columns which have vlookups
creating the data.

Counting cell entries
 

However, will also count nulls ( "" ), although technically, those zero
length strings *are* text.

To count only text, and *not* count nulls:

=Countif(C1:C100,"*?")

--

Regards,

RD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit !
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
Try this:

=COUNTIF(C1:C100,"*")

This will count *only* TEXT entries.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"jc132568" wrote in message
...
Dear experts,
I have one column, C. In this column is a VLOOKUP to another range of
cells
in another workbook. The Lookup returns whatever comment has been typed
into
a particular cell on the other sheet. I want to count the number of times
comments have been entered and display it underneath the column C.

When I use COUNTA, it returns the total number of cells because the
vlookup
returns the number zero if there is no comment so this gets counted as an
entry. The comments I want to count are entries like Fail, resit. Not
everyone gets a comment. How can I be more specific about what I want
COUNTA
to count i.e. don't count zeros.
Thanks
Martina
PS I could count the entries from the original sheet but I just wanted to
know if it was possible to count entries in columns which have vlookups
creating the data.

Counting cell entries
 

Thank you both, fixed my problem.
Many thanks
Martina

"RagDyeR" wrote:

However, will also count nulls ( "" ), although technically, those zero
length strings *are* text.

To count only text, and *not* count nulls:

=Countif(C1:C100,"*?")

--

Regards,

RD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit !
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
Try this:

=COUNTIF(C1:C100,"*")

This will count *only* TEXT entries.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"jc132568" wrote in message
...
Dear experts,
I have one column, C. In this column is a VLOOKUP to another range of
cells
in another workbook. The Lookup returns whatever comment has been typed
into
a particular cell on the other sheet. I want to count the number of times
comments have been entered and display it underneath the column C.

When I use COUNTA, it returns the total number of cells because the
vlookup
returns the number zero if there is no comment so this gets counted as an
entry. The comments I want to count are entries like Fail, resit. Not
everyone gets a comment. How can I be more specific about what I want
COUNTA
to count i.e. don't count zeros.
Thanks
Martina
PS I could count the entries from the original sheet but I just wanted to
know if it was possible to count entries in columns which have vlookups
creating the data.

Counting cell entries
 

Appreciate the feed-back.
--
Regards,

RD

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please keep all correspondence within the NewsGroup, so all may benefit !
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"jc132568" wrote in message
...
Thank you both, fixed my problem.
Many thanks
Martina

"RagDyeR" wrote:

However, will also count nulls ( "" ), although technically, those zero
length strings *are* text.

To count only text, and *not* count nulls:

=Countif(C1:C100,"*?")

--

Regards,

RD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit !
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
Try this:

=COUNTIF(C1:C100,"*")

This will count *only* TEXT entries.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"jc132568" wrote in message
...
Dear experts,
I have one column, C. In this column is a VLOOKUP to another range of
cells
in another workbook. The Lookup returns whatever comment has been typed
into
a particular cell on the other sheet. I want to count the number of
times
comments have been entered and display it underneath the column C.

When I use COUNTA, it returns the total number of cells because the
vlookup
returns the number zero if there is no comment so this gets counted as
an
entry. The comments I want to count are entries like Fail, resit. Not
everyone gets a comment. How can I be more specific about what I want
COUNTA
to count i.e. don't count zeros.
Thanks
Martina
PS I could count the entries from the original sheet but I just wanted
to
know if it was possible to count entries in columns which have vlookups
creating the data.