need help summing text in column

[Laura Larson]

Hi,

I'm not working with #'s, however would like excel to sum text (e.g. names)
in a list. With that info, i'm creating a cell that will subtract it from a
static #.

Thank you.

 

[Ron Coderre]

You'll need to explain what "sum text" means.
Since your data is names, they have no obvious numeric value.
Did you mean that you want to count the occurrences of certain names?
or something else?

Can you post some sample data and what you hope to calculate from it?

Regards,

Ron
Microsoft MVP - Excel

 

[Laura Larson]

Thanks for replying.

The net result is I'd like excel to calculate how many seats are taken in
class against its maximum capacity (e.g. max: 10 seats, 8 taken) by counting
# of students (thought I could use the "name" column). What I could do is
have a column (like "confirmed) that it could count. Was just looking for an
efficient way of doing this. Thank you for your help!

 

[Dave]

Hi,
To count names (or any text) in a column A, you can use:
=COUNTIF(A:A,"?*")
The list can contain spaces or zero-length text cells. They will not be
counted.
So, your final formula to show spare seats would be something like:
Number of Seats - COUNTIF(A:A,"*?")
Regards - Dave.