When it comes to counting cells, Excel offers many robust ways you can use to count. Cells can be counted by the value they have, which makes it a strong function in Excel. Let's try to grasp the concepts of Count Functions in Excel.
In Excel, there are 5 Count functions. They are,
- COUNT
- COUNTA
- COUNTBLANK
- COUNTIF
- COUNTIFS
Let's discuss each count function with an example.
The COUNT function
The COUNT function is used to count the number of cells that have numbers in a selected cell range. This will count and display the number of cells that have numbers. All the blank cells and text cells will remain un-counted.
For example, if you want to count the number of students with marks in a certain assignment, you can use the COUNT function. Why? because those who have marks will be counted in the count function and those with "AB" and "" will be left without counting.
The syntax of the function is as follows:
=COUNT(cell_range)
The COUNTA function
COUNTA function is used to count all the cells that are not empty. If the cell contains something like a number, or text (a letter or symbol) then the cell will be counted and those that are empty will left not counted.
This could be specially used when you want to count cells that contain not a number, such as a grocery list, name list, etc.
The syntax for COUNTA functions as follows:
=COUNT(cell_range)
The COUNTBLANK function
The COUNTBLANK function is used to count the empty cells. When you provide the cell range to this function it will count cells that nothing is having in it.
This could be useful when you want to count cells that are not filled yet.
The syntax of this function is similar to previous functions that we have discussed.
=COUNTBLANK(cell_range)
The COUNTIF function
The COUNTIF function is used to count a set of cells that validate certain criteria. If the specified criteria are true for a certain cell, then it will be counted otherwise it will left without counting.
For example, take a mark sheet for class. If the teacher wants to know how many students got marks less than 40 for a subject, she can use the COUNTIF function.
The syntax for COUNTIF function is as follows:
= COUNTIF(cell_range, criteria)
Note: for the COUNTIF function, criteria should be passed as a string (within quotation marks)
The COUNTIFS function
COUNTIFS functions are used to count cells that meet multiple criteria. It is structurally similar to the COUNTIF function but multiple criteria should be true to be counted.
For example, if the teacher wants to count the number of students who pass both Maths and Science on a mark sheet, she can use this function.
The syntax for the COUNTIFS function as follows:
=COUNTIFS(criteria_range_1, criteria_1,[criteria_range_2, criteria_2,]...)
Let's see COUNT functions in action in the next post. To see it click here.