Excel 2016 Bible

Chapter 13Creating Formulas That Count and Sum

IN THIS CHAPTER

1. Introducing various ways to count and sum cells
2. Creating basic counting and summing formulas
3. Working with advanced counting and summing formulas
4. Developing conditional summing formulas

Many of the most common spreadsheet questions involve counting and summing values and other worksheet elements. It seems that people are always looking for formulas to count or to sum various items in a worksheet. If I've done my job, this chapter answers the majority of such questions. It contains many examples that you can easily adapt to your own situation.

Counting and Summing Worksheet Cells

Generally, a counting formula returns the number of cells in a specified range that meet certain criteria. A summing formula returns the sum of the values of the cells in a range that meet certain criteria.

Table 13.1 lists the Excel worksheet functions that come into play when creating counting and summing formulas. Not all these functions are covered in this chapter. If none of the functions in Table 13.1 can solve your problem, it's likely that an array formula can come to the rescue.

Table 13.1 Excel Counting and Summing Functions

Function	Description
COUNT	Returns the number of cells that contain a numeric value.
COUNTA	Returns the number of nonblank cells.
COUNTBLANK	Returns the number of blank cells.
COUNTIF	Returns the number of cells that meet a specified criterion.
COUNTIFS*	Returns the number of cells that meet ...