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You can count the number of cells in an Excel
worksheet range based on certain criteria. Therefore this function
provides power and utility. The range can be one or many cells.
The syntax is: countif(range, criteria). For example, 'A2:A10' is a
range
from which you can count values based on criteria. The criteria could
be a number, for example, '>90' or text like 'yes' or 'no' or any
other text. You could count for example, all employees getting a salary
of greater than 10000 per month or you could count all employees who
opted for 'insurance'. You could count 'items' in an invoice based on a
category like 'electrical' or 'electronic'. The usage possibilities are
based on your problem that requires a quick solution.
In fact, you can use wild cards. Let's say you wish to count all
employees or persons whose name begins with 'N'. you could write the
countif function as '=countif(Range of cells ',"N*"). Now if you find
too many persons you can use the wild card '?'. The '*' counts
everything but the '?' represents only one character. So if typed
'N????' in the criteria you would definitely catch 'Nancy' if it
existed in your specified Excel cell range. The Human resources
department of your company may use the countif function to count how
many people left the company during a certain period and how this
disturbed the marketing efforts of your company! Note: The
formula for finding the empty cells in a column are, for example: '=countif(B2:B10,"<>"&"*")
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