countif criteria format/type question

[lezawang]

Hi
I want to count how many f in this column. if i type =countif(A1:A10,"f") then excel will return 2 but if i type =countif(A1:A10,f) excel will return 0. in the second case, what excel consider F is?
Thank you very much

a

b

b

f

f

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[footoo]

If you click on fx next to the formula bar, you will see that the criteria f is returning #NAME?
Help on the countif function says :

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Problem [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot] What went wrong[/FONT][/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]No value returned when you expect a value.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Be sure to enclose the criteria argument in quotes.[/FONT]

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[Peter_SSs]

.. what excel consider F is?

Excel is considering the f as a named range. If you name a single cell as f, then the COUNTIF will use whatever value is in that cell as its second argument.

Here is an example where cell D4 has been given the name f. It hold the value "b" so the COUNTIF is returning 3 because there are three "b"s in the range being counted.

Excel Workbook
	A	B	C	D
1	a		3
2	b
3	b
4	f			b
5	f
6	b
7
8
9
10
Sheet4

#VALUE!

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