Tag: PR

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Using the Countif Function in Excel 2010

Countif Counts the number of cells within a range that meet the given criteria.

Syntax

COUNTIF(range,criteria)

Range    is the range of cells from which you want to count cells.

Criteria    is the criteria in the form of a number, expression, cell reference, or text that defines which cells will be counted. For example, criteria can be expressed as 32, “32”, “>32”, “apples”, or B4.

Remarks

  • You can use the wildcard characters, question mark (?) and asterisk (*), in criteria. A question mark matches any single character; an asterisk matches any sequence of characters. If you want to find an actual question mark or asterisk, type a tilde (~) before the character.
  • Microsoft Excel provides additional functions that can be used to analyze your data based on a condition.
    • To calculate a sum based on a string of text or a number within a range, use the SUMIF worksheet function.
    • To have a formula return one of two values based on a condition, such as a sales bonus based on a specified sales amount, use the IF worksheet function.
    • To count cells that are empty or not empty, use the COUNTA and COUNTBLANK functions.

Example 1: Common COUNTIF formulas

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank worksheet.

  1. Create a blank workbook or worksheet.
  2. Select the example in the Help topic.

 Note   Do not select the row or column headers.

Selecting an example from Help
  1. Press CTRL+C.
  2. In the worksheet, select cell A1, and press CTRL+V.
  3. To switch between viewing the results and viewing the formulas that return the results, press CTRL+` (grave accent), or on the Tools menu, point to Formula Auditing, and then click Formula Auditing Mode.
 
1
2
3
4
5
A B
Data Data
apples 32
oranges 54
peaches 75
apples 86
Formula Description (result)
=COUNTIF(A2:A5,”apples”) Number of cells with apples in the first column above (2)
=COUNTIF(A2:A5,A4) Number of cells with peaches in the first column above (1)
=COUNTIF(A2:A5,A3)+COUNTIF(A2:A5,A2) Number of cells with oranges or apples in the first column above (3)
=COUNTIF(B2:B5,”>55″) Number of cells with a value greater than 55 in the second column above (2)
=COUNTIF(B2:B5,”<>”&B4) Number of cells with a value not equal to 75 in the second column above (2)
=COUNTIF(B2:B5,”>=32″)-COUNTIF(B2:B5,”>85″) Number of cells with a value greater than or equal to 32 and less than or equal to 85 in the second column above (3)

Example 2: COUNTIF formulas using wildcard characters and handling blank values

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank worksheet.

Create a blank workbook or worksheet.

  1. Select the example in the Help topic.

 Note   Do not select the row or column headers.

Selecting an example from Help
  1. Press CTRL+C.
  2. In the worksheet, select cell A1, and press CTRL+V.
  3. To switch between viewing the results and viewing the formulas that return the results, press CTRL+` (grave accent), or on the Tools menu, point to Formula Auditing, and then click Formula Auditing Mode.
 
1
2
3
4
5
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7
A B
Data Data
apples Yes
   
oranges NO
peaches No
   
apples YeS
Formula Description (result)
=COUNTIF(A2:A7,”*es”) Number of cells ending with the letters “es” in the first column above (4)
=COUNTIF(A2:A7,”?????es”) Number of cells ending with the letters “les” and having exactly 7 letters in the first column above (2)
=COUNTIF(A2:A7,”*”) Number of cells containing text in the first column above (4)
=COUNTIF(A2:A7,”<>”&”*”) Number of cells not containing text in the first column above (2)
=COUNTIF(B2:B7,”No”) / ROWS(B2:B7) The average number of No votes including blank cells in the second column above formatted as a percentage with no decimal places (33%)
=COUNTIF(B2:B7,”Yes”) / (ROWS(B2:B7) -COUNTIF(B2:B7, “<>”&”*”)) The average number of Yes votes excluding blank cells in the second column above formatted as a percentage with no decimal places (50%)

 Note    To view the number as a percentage, select the cell and click Cells on the Format menu. Click the Number tab, and then click Percentage in the Category box.

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Using Auto Sum

Let’s look at an example using a formula that provides a total amount.

excel-formulas-summing

In the total row, we want to display the sum of all household expenditure. Make sure that the cell you want to contain the total is active and then click Home > Editing > AutoSum. Because the active cell is positioned directly below a column of numbers, Excel 2010 guesses that you want to sum them and places a selection around them (see A below).

excel-formulas-autosum

B is called the Formula Bar and it displays the content of the active cell, which in this case is a formula. C is the active cell and contains the formula. Let’s look at the structure of a formula.

You can see that the formula starts with a “=”.  All formulas must start with “=”. The next part is SUM, which you can guess represents the SUM function. The contents of the brackets are called arguments and they define the range of cells that we are summing – in this case cells B2 to B7. This range is defined as B2:B7. Autosum is a quick and easy formula to use that automatically identifies its input variables. Let’s now look at a formula we can set up manually.

Defining Your Own Formula In Excel

Suppose we have the following example that details price, VAT and total price.

excel-define-your-own-formula

As you can see, we start with a price before VAT and we need to calculate first the VAT and then the total price. Let’s calculat the VAT first, based on a VAT rate of 17.5%. The formula therefore is VAT = 17.5% x Price. Make cell B2 active and in it type
=17.5%*A2
Excel knows how to handle percentages so you don’t need to convert 17.5% to 0.175 for the calculation. When you press enter, Excel calculates the VAT to be 43.75. We have dealt with the first VAT amount, but what about the rest? There is a quick and easy way to apply the formula you just created to other cells. With cell B2 active, position the cursor over the bottom right corner so that the cursor becomes a ‘+’. When it does, drag downwards to select all cells that should use the formula (down to cell B6).

excel-apply-formula-to-other-cells

When you release the mouse, Excel applies the VAT formula to the selected cells and calculates their values. That’s the VAT for all rows take care of. On to the total price.

Total price = price + VAT

We can define that as a formula by typing into C2 the following

=A2+B2

When you press Enter Excel calculates the sum of A2 and B2 to give 293.75. And we’ve already seen how we can to apply that formula to the remaining cells. The finished spreadsheet should look like this.

excel-formulas