Hello All,
In the table below I have formulas in each of the cells B2-B12, assessing results in another table. These same formulas spread across the rows. There are obviously no results yet in columns C onwards. In Row13 there is a simple formula:
COUNTA B2:B12
This formula also continues along the row, counting their relative columns.
Why is the formula counting blank cells from Column C onwards?
Any help appreciated.
MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)
COUNTA sees the cells contain formulas and counts them.
One way to return 0 if nothing is displayed in a cell but it contains a formula is to do something like this:
=COUNTIF(B,"<>"&"")
SG
HI INDY-GO,
COUNTA counts cells that contain 'something'.
Each of those 'blank' cells contains a formula. Each formula returns a result.
The result in those blank cells is most likely a null string ( "" ), which has an appearance similar to that of an empty cell.
But a null string is a zero length string of text. The cells contain a text value, so they are counted by COUNTA.
Use, as SGIII has suggested, COUNTIF to count the cells whose content is NOT a null string.
Regards,
Barry
INDY-GO wrote:
Thanks SGill. Works well.
Just to confirm, what does the following mean:
"<>"
"" (blank I presume)
With Thanks
"<>" means "not equal to"
"" means null string (similar to blank: no value in there, but could be a formula that displays as blank)
SG
Thanks SGill. Works well.
Just to confirm, what does the following mean:
"<>"
"" (blank I presume)
With Thanks
why is counta counting blank cells?
