This should work...

=1+SUMPRODUCT(--(MID(TRIM(IF(A1=""," ","X")&IF(B1=""," ","X")&IF(
C1=""," ","X")&IF(D1=""," ","X")&IF(E1=""," ","X")),ROW($1:$5),1)=" "))

--
Rick (MVP - Excel)


"Eric_in_EVV" wrote in message
...
Let me try to clarify with by way of an example spreadsheet:

A B C D E
1 x would equal 1 point
2 x x would equal 2 points
3 x x x would equal 1 point
4 x x x would equal 2 points (1 for A4 and
1
for D4 & E4 combined)

In other words, any single occurance gets one point, whereas any
consecutive
multiple occurance ALSO gets one point. Does that help to clarify ?


"Rick Rothstein" wrote:

Clarification please... your subject line as well as your request
indicates
that multiple cells can contain the text you are looking for... ignoring
the
text "after" them, if C4 and B5 both contained this text, which of them
would be considered the "first occurance" as your subject line indicates
you
are looking for? That is, are you looking row by row or column by column
to
find the first occurance?

As for the "the next two cells, going across and then down" part of your
question, did you mean to look in the 3 cells that Ron's answer is based
on,
or were you describing a 2x2 grid of cells?

--
Rick (MVP - Excel)


"Eric_in_EVV" wrote in message
...
I have a worksheet that is 7 columns by 5 rows...in any one of those
cells
the user can input a certain text value, say "X". I need to find which
cell
that value is in and then test the next two cells, going across and
then
down
to see if the same value exists in order to assign points based on a
predefined points system. Any ideas on how to do that ?