Count if it is not blank excel

Suppose you need to know if your team members have entered all their project hours in a worksheet. In other words, you need to count the cells that have data. And to complicate matters, the data may not be numeric. Some of your team members may have entered placeholder values such as «TBD». For that, use the COUNTA function.

Here’s an example:

The function counts only the cells that have data, but be aware that «data» can include spaces, which you can’t see. And yes, you could probably count the blanks in this example yourself, but imagine doing that in a big workbook. So, to use the formula:

1. Determine the range of cells you want to count. The example above used cells B2 through D6.

2. Select the cell where you want to see the result, the actual count. Let’s call that the result cell.

3. In either the result cell or the formula bar, type the formula and press Enter, like so:

   =COUNTA(B2:B6)

You can also count the cells in more than one range. This example counts cells in B2 through D6, and in B9 through D13.

You can see Excel highlights the cells ranges, and when you press Enter, the result appears:

If you know you don’t need to count text data, just numbers and dates, use the COUNT function.

More ways to count cells that have data

• Count characters in cells

• Count how often a value occurs

• Count unique values among duplicates

In this example, the goal is to count cells in a range that are not blank (i.e. not empty). There are several ways to go about this task, depending on your needs. The article below explains different approaches.

COUNTA function

While the COUNT function only counts numbers, the COUNTA function counts both numbers and text. This means you can use COUNTA as a simple way to count cells that are not blank. In the example shown, the formula in F6 uses COUNTA like this:

=COUNTA(C5:C16) // returns 9

Since there are nine cells in the range C5:C16 that contain values, COUNTA returns 9. COUNTA is fully automatic, so there is nothing to configure.

COUNTIFS function

You can also use the COUNTIFS function to count cells that are not blank like this:

=COUNTIFS(C5:C16,"<>") // returns 9

The «<>» operator means «not equal to» in Excel, so this formula literally means count cells not equal to nothing. Because COUNTIFS can handle multiple criteria, we can easily extend this formula to count cells that are not empty in Group «A» like this:

=COUNTIFS(B5:B16,"A",C5:C16,"<>") // returns 4

The first range/criteria pair selects cells that are in Group A only. The second range/criteria pair selects cells that are not empty. The result from COUNTIFS is 4, since there are 4 cells in Group A that are not empty. You can swap the order of the range/criteria pairs with the same result.

See also: 50 examples of formula criteria.

SUMPRODUCT function

One problem with COUNTA and COUNTIFS is that they will also count empty strings («») returned by formulas as not blank, even though these cells are intended to be blank. For example, if A1 contains 21, this formula in B1 will return an empty string:

=IF(A1>30,"Overdue","")

However, COUNTA and COUNTIFS will still count B1 as not empty. If you run into this problem, you can use the SUMPRODUCT function to count cells that are not blank like this:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(C5:C16<>""))

The expression C5:C16<>»» returns an array that contains 12 TRUE and FALSE values, and the double negative (—) converts the TRUE and FALSE values to 1s and 0s:

=SUMPRODUCT({1;1;0;1;1;0;1;1;1;0;1;1}) // returns 9

The result is 9 as before. But this formula will also ignore cells that contain formulas that return empty strings.

You can easily extend the logic used in SUMPRODUCT with other functions as needed. For example, the variant below uses the LEN function to count cells that have a length greater than zero:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEN(C5:C16)>0)) // returns 9

You can extend the formula to count cells that are not blank in Group A like this:

=SUMPRODUCT((LEN(C5:C16)>0)*(B5:B16="A"))

This is an example of using Boolean algebra in a formula. The double negative is no longer needed in this case because the math operation of multiplying the two arrays together automatically converts the TRUE and FALSE values to 1s and 0s:

=SUMPRODUCT({1;1;0;1;1;0;0;0;0;0;0;0}) // returns 4

The final result is 4, since there are four cells in Group A that are not blank in C5:C16.

Note: one reason the Boolean syntax above is useful is because you can drop the same logical expressions into a newer function like the FILTER function to extract cells that meet the same criteria. The SUMPRODUCT function is more versatile than RACON functions like COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, etc. and you will often see it used in formulas that solve tricky problems. You can read more about SUMPRODUCT here. 

This is going to be a super simple post, here our aim is to find the number of cells that contain data, cells that are blank or empty should be excluded. The task is quite simple but the question becomes ‘how to do it?’. You know you want Excel to count a certain type of cells for you but if you find yourself wondering what to put in your sheets to get that count, you’re about to find out.

This tutorial will walk you through the usage of functions to count non-blank cells and at the end, we will also see a few functions to selectively count only the blank cells. So, without further ado, let’s jump right in.

Counting Cells That Are Not Blank

Here we are going to talk about three Excel functions that can help us to count non-blank cells from a range.

Using COUNTIF Function

The COUNTIF function counts the number of cells within a range that meet the given criteria. COUNTIF asks for the range from which it needs to count and the criteria according to which it needs to count. To count all the non-blank cells with COUNTIF we can make use of the following formula:

=COUNTIF(range,"<>")

Let’s try to understand this with an example. So, we have a dataset as shown below:

From this list of product discounts, we will aim to find how many products are discounted. In Excel’s terminology, this means – we are finding out how many non-blank cells there are in column D (the non-blank cells represent the discounts on products and the blank cells represent products with no discount).

We can easily accomplish this using the following COUNTIF formula:

=COUNTIF(D3:D14,"<>")

And our final result looks something like this.

Here, the formula has been fed with the range of column D (D3:D14). The criteria for searching column D is «<>» which is the indicator for non-blank cells («» for blank cells).

The COUNTIF function has counted 8 non-blank cells as the result. This tells us that in our dataset, there are 8 products on discount.

The COUNTIF function can be used for only one condition. For multiple conditions (e.g., non-blank cells and discount more than 20%), we can use the COUNTIFS function.

The next function we will use to count if not blank cells are present in a range is the COUNTA function.

Using COUNTA Function

By its nature, the COUNTA function counts the cells in a range that are not empty. It is a single argument function (in its simplest form) requiring just the range from which to count non-blank cells.

We will use it in our last example and simply add our range D3:D14 to the COUNTA function in this way:

=COUNTA(D3:D14)

We have the same results as the COUNTIF function i.e., 8 non-blank cells, with fewer arguments.

For the sole purpose of counting non-blank cells, the COUNTA function offers an easy, straightforward solution.

However, the COUNTA and COUNTIF functions will also count cells with space characters and formulas that return an empty string. This means that the functions will count cells that look blank but are not essentially blank.

Why is that a problem?

Technically, a space character or a formula that returns an empty string is very different from a blank cell. Although they look similar but technically they are two different things.

But since our purpose here is to count non-blank cells, so we might want the cells that appear blank to be counted as blank cells (technically, even though they are not blank). To accomplish this instead of using the COUNTIF or COUNTA functions it is better to use a SUMPRODUCT function. And this is what we are going to see in the next section.

Tip: If you are adamant about using the COUNTIF or COUNTA function for counting non-blank cells, another way around it would be to filter the data and get rid of the cells with hidden values. This will refine the results without the inclusion of faux blank cells. For now, we will move onto the SUMPRODUCT function.

Using SUMPRODUCT Function

The SUMPRODUCT returns the sum of the products of the supplied ranges or arrays. To count non-blank cells using SUMPRODUCT function we can use the below formula:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(C2:C13<>""))

Let’s try to understand the formula first and then we can compare it with the COUNTIF and COUNTA functions.

In the above formula, first of all, we are checking if the values in the range C2:C13 are equal to an empty string (nothing). This returns an array of boolean values like this –

=SUMPRODUCT(--({TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE}))

Now, since the SUMPRODUCT function cannot sum boolean values we are converting them to 0’s and 1’s by using the double-negatives. So, the formula gets further simplified to something like this –

=SUMPRODUCT({1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1})

The SUMPRODUCT  function adds all these 1’s and 0’s and returns the final result.

An important thing worth noting here is that the above formula does not treat space character as an empty string (nothing) so it will still be counted as a non-blank cell. To count them as blanks we can make use of the TRIM function and the final formula would look like this –

=SUMPRODUCT(--(TRIM(C2:C13)<>""))

Pro Tip: Instead of using the double negatives to convert boolean values to 1’s and 0’s we can also either add 0 to them or multiply them by 1 and our final result would still be the same.

Now, Let’s have the COUNTIF, COUNTA, and SUMPRODUCT functions side by side and analyze them:

What we can see from the serial numbering, is that there are 12 rows in our dataset. C5 is a blank cell that is correctly interpreted as blank cells by COUNTIF and COUNTA. It appears that there are 2 more blank cells (C8 containing a space character and C10 containing a formula that returns an empty string i.e., =»») in the range which means that there are 9 non-blank cells.

While the COUNTIF and COUNTA functions have treated C5 as a blank cell but they treat the other two C8 and C10 as non-blank cells and thus return 11 as the count.

On the other hand, the SUMPRODUCT based formula correctly identifies all such cells and hence returns 9 as the count of non-blank cells.

Recommended Reading: Counting Unique Values In Excel

Counting Blank Cells

Now is the turn for counting blank cells. We have ahead 2 very simple ways of counting empty cells with help of the COUNTBLANK and the COUNTIF function.

Using COUNTBLANK Function

The COUNTBLANK function, pretty self-explanatory, counts the number of empty/blank cells in a specified range. We will use the function plainly to get our results:

=COUNTBLANK(D3:D14)

We have inserted the range D3:D14 in the formula to see how many blank cells there are in column D which will tell us the number of products with no discount. The outcome of the COUNTBLANK function is «4» blank cells.

Using COUNTIF Function

As explained above, the COUNTIF function can be used for counting both, blank and non-blank cells. Now we will see how to use COUNTIF for counting blank cells.

To count blank cells the COUNTIF function can be used as:

=COUNTIF(D3:D14,"")

In the formula, which is made up of the range and criteria, we have swapped the criteria for counting non-blank cells (i.e., «<>») with the criteria for counting blank cells (i.e., «»). With the range specified as D3:D14, the COUNTIF function returns «4» blank cells as the result, indicating 4 undiscounted products.

At the end of this tutorial, we hope you won’t feel blank when trying to count if not blank and blank cells. We’re following up with more how-to’s as you read!