Waffle Bytes

(Part of my administrative assistant series on Google Sheets.) When dealing with a large (or even small) amount of data, being able to quickly get some counts can be done very quickly using the count formulas.  Lots of people know the basic one, but what many do not know is there are several different count formulas that give you great flexibility in counting your data for exactly what you want.  COUNT Counts the number of cells in the selected range that have numeric data entries. Example: =COUNT(A1:A30) Here is an example of it - COUNTA Counts the number of cells in the selected range that have any data type  (non-empty cells). Example:  =COUNTA( A1:A30 ) Here is an example of it - COUNTBLANK Counts the number of cells in the selected range that have no data (empty cells). Example:  =COUNTBLANK( A1:A30 ) Here is an example of it -  COUNTUNIQUE Counts the number of cells with unique data entries in the the selected r...

Many people that use sheets know how to count the number of cells with numerical entries using the =COUNT function.  For example, here's a spreadsheet where I've documented my running minutes and I want to know how many days I ran: Pretty simple.  But what if I want to know how many cells within a range have alphanumeric entries?  Or what if I want to know how many cells within a range meet certain criteria? There are actually a whole series of count functions available in Google Sheets: COUNTA : will count the number of cells with any entry (nonblank) in a range.  For example, I've added in my strength & conditioning workouts on those days.  Using =COUNTA(range) I can document the total number of days I worked out whether it was running or another workout. COUNTIF : counts the number of cells within a range that meet a certain criteria.  This formula has two pieces - the range to check, followed by the criteria to match.  If the criter...