Red Gig

The COUNTIF function provides the ability to establish how many occurrences of a specific value or condition exist in a range of values. This function begins to increase capability with a function that is simple to operate. COUNTIF "Counts the number of cells within a range that meet the given condition" There are two arguments required to use the COUNTIF function, the first, range, is usually a group of cells, the second, criteria, is the argument that is used to match the cells in the range. In this example, we'll use the COUNTIF function to establish how many time the word "day" appears in a list of text. The range of cells that need to be checked for the word "day" exist in the range B2:B28 and the criteria we wish to count is entered as "day". The result of this function is the following: So we can conclude there are 7 occurrences of the word "day" in the range B2:B38. We can also use a cell reference as the second argument as

Once you've got the hang of the basics in Excel you'll normally require the use of the IF function to carry out slightly more complex actions. At first glance, the IF function can appear a little daunting but after some time it'll become second nature and enable you to create spreadsheets that will begin to deliver significant benefits. The IF function usually incorporates 3 elements (arguments), the logical_test, the value_if_true and the value_if_false. You'll notice from the square brackets below that the last two arguments are optional. If you are new to the IF function I would recommend supplying all 3 arguments to help understand what the formula is doing. logical_test This part of the formula, is usually a comparison, the simplest form is A1 = B1 where A1 and B1 are 'tested' to see if they match. The output of this test is one of two possibilities, true or false. Some other logical tests could be A1 > B1, A1 = "apples" or even A1 = B1 = C1. T