# Can Excel "count" how many people's names?



## twoyankeez (Sep 20, 2002)

I need to have a cell that totals how many participants I have entered (each name) in the spread sheet. I assume this has something to do with the COUNTA function, but I am not sure how to write the formula. I will be inserting rows to enter participants names and information as it comes in and I want the number to update as I add things. Is this possible?


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## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)

Sure. Suppose you have in column A:

A1 = Participants
A2 = Participant1name
A3 = Participant2name
etc.

In another cell, you could put this formula:

=COUNTA(A:A)-1

The -1 Subtracts the cell that contains the column heading. The A:A counts all cells in column A. Remember---a space WILL be counted, so you must delete bad names, not replace them with spaces.


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

couldn't she do this? (assuming the names is in column A and starts from A2)

=count(A2:A200000)


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## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)

Count doesn't work on text.
CountA does.

Yes, you could use =COUNTA(A2:A65536)


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## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)

....or any number greater than or equal to A65536 (the last available row in versions 2002 and less)


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

Oooohhhh....  I gotcha now... I never seen COUNTA before so I was kinda curious. I now know who to look for with my XL questions....


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## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)




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