Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Counting with Formulas.

Counting with Formulas

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 1, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


If you are working with a data table that has a limited number of categories by which you want a count, you can use the COUNTIF worksheet function to do your work. For instance, you may have a data table that has two columns. Column A could be names of customers and Column B could be names of sales representatives. There are only half a dozen sales representatives, but scores of customers.

In Column E, list the names of your sales reps, one rep per row. (If you have only a half dozen sales reps, you should have only six rows filled out.) Begin in Row 2, since E1 will probably be used for the column name, such as "Sales Rep." The sales rep names should be spelled exactly as they appear in the data table.

In Column F, beside the first sales rep, enter the following formula:

=COUNTIF($A$2:$B$200,"="&$E2)

Make sure you replace $A$2:$B$200 with the actual range of your original data table. (You could use a named range, if desired.)

Copy this formula (cell F2) into the other five rows of Column F (cells F3:F7), right beside each sales rep's name.

That's it! The information in Column F represents the number of customers for each sales rep.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2159) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Counting with Formulas.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Turning Off Paragraph Hyphenation

Need to make sure that a particular paragraph never has any hyphenated words in it? You can make sure that Word won't ...

Discover More

Setting Grid Line Intervals for a Radar Chart

Excel provides a wide variety of chart types you can use with your data. Unfortunately, this variety can often make it ...

Discover More

Problems Saving as PDF

When sharing documents with others, it's hard to beat the versatility and consistency of a PDF file. Word 2010 allows you ...

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Counting with Two Criteria

When you use Excel as a simple database program to store individual records, you may have a need to count the records ...

Discover More

Counting within Criteria

You can use the COUNTIF function to determine how many cells in a range fit your criteria. One criterion is easy; using ...

Discover More

Cell and Name References in COUNTIF

The second parameter of the COUNTIF function is used to specify the criteria to be used when determining what should be ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 1 + 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.