Countif - text begins with the letter __

[Sppinner]

Hi there,

I am using a countif formula to answer the question: How many Entries begin with the letter "i"?

The formula I am using is =countif(left(C2:C101,1),"I") but I am getting an error return

Do you know what I am doing wrong? How else could I find out how many of the entries begin with the letter "I"?

Thanks!

Spinner

 

[Jonmo1]

You can't apply a function to the range in countif..

Try using a wildcard

=COUNTIF(C2:C101,"I*")

 

[Sppinner]

Ok thanks! I didn't know about wildcards.

Could I use * to find entries that are only one word entries?

As an example it would return "Fries" --> One word
but would not return "Fries and Gravy" --> Three words

Sppinner

 

[Jonmo1]

In that case, you would NOT use the wildcard, and just use "Fries"

=COUNTIF(C2:C101,"Fries")

 

[Sppinner]

I am trying to apply it to a long range of entries so I would need it to be able to answer the question: How many entries are made up of only one word?

I'm thinking of something like =countif(c2:c101, and("?*?",not("?*? ?*?")))

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