When you work in Excel, it’s often useful to count the number of numerical values within a given range. If you have a small amount of data, you can do this manually. But it becomes difficult if you have a large volume of data. Fortunately, Excel has a handy built-in function for this purpose. Let’s learn how to count numbers in Microsoft Excel.
How to Count Numbers in Excel
Imagine that you have a range of data contained in cells A1:C5 in your spreadsheet. At a glance, you need to know how many cells contain numerical data. Notice that the range contains three words, so simply counting the number of total cells won’t give you an accurate total.
This is where Excel’s COUNT function comes in. COUNT is the fastest, best way to count numbers in Microsoft Excel. It evaluates a given range and counts only the total numerical values.
To count numbers in Microsoft Excel, begin by clicking into any empty cell in your workbook. Then, type an = sign. This is the universal method for telling Excel that a cell will contain a formula.
Next, type COUNT(, which inserts the COUNT function into your formula, which now reads:
=COUNT(
Finally, you’ll need to select the range from which you want the count of numbers. In this case, the range is A1:C5. Once you have it selected, type ), completing your formula as:
=COUNT(A1:C5)
Hit Enter on your keyboard, and Excel will count the numbers in the range. The solution will display in the cell where you placed the formula: 12.
As you can see, it’s easy to count numbers in Microsoft Excel. You don’t have to count manually; instead, by using the simple COUNT function, you can easily evaluate and count within even the largest datasets in mere seconds.
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