Penny Arcade Forums› Help / Advice Forum
As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options

Can't get COUNTIF to work in Excel

NoughtNought Registered User regular
in Help / Advice Forum
Hi

For some reason I can't get the function COUNTIF to work in Excel. When I try to activate it, the second part of the range trows up an error message.

As in =COUNTIF(A1:A20,C1) excel won't run it, and highlights A20 as the part that is the problem.

I'm on a mac computer for the first time in my life, and it's unsettling me, so my normal problem solving skills seem to be failing me. Do I need to run the developer panel in Excel to use that function, or is there something obvious that I'm not doing?

Any help welcomed :)

On fire
.
Island. Being on fire.

Posts

  • Options
    MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Is A20 a different format than the others?
    Is A20 the cell you're trying to run the formula?

  • Options
    NoughtNought Registered User regular
    No to both.

    I'm sure it's just a simple problem, but I just can't seem to find the solution, and working on a mac isn't helping me.

    On fire
    .
    Island. Being on fire.
  • Options
    Dis'Dis' Registered User regular
    The formula should work, have you tried it in a fresh workbook?

    Other than you posting a sanitized version of the file I've got no ideas

  • Options
    NoughtNought Registered User regular
    I'm getting off work now, so will look and see if I have the same problem when I get home to my windows PC. But thanks for responding so far :)

    On fire
    .
    Island. Being on fire.
  • Options
    OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
    Ya, there's not a lot of information to go off of. What error are you getting? #VALUE? If you could sanitize the actual formula, the contents of A20 and C1, it would be easier to make a guess. COUNTIF can fail if the search criteria is too long. I think older versions would error out if the search area was incorrectly specified (like if you tried to choose a starting cell down or to the right of the ending cell), but newer versions will fix that automatically. And there are a bunch of ways to screw it up if you're using named ranges, or ranges in a different worksheet.

  • Options
    NoughtNought Registered User regular
    Thank you all for trying to help me. Found the error.

    In the Danish version of Excel I have to use a semicolon after the range rather than a comma for som reason.

    Very strange that they would change something like that.

    Also for some reason the functions have been translated, so COUNTIF don't work it seem. I have to use the function TÆL.HVIS. Very strange to me that they would adapt functions to the language.

    Problem solved. This thread can be closed.

    On fire
    .
    Island. Being on fire.
Sign In or Register to comment.
Penny Arcade Forums› Help / Advice Forum