I’ve been given an excel file that I’d like to use the countif function for. When I run the formula for column F, the result comes up as “0” – even though every cell in column F has a number in it that should provide a result in the countif cell.
However, when I go into each cell in column F and type the number already displayed in the cell, results start appearing for the countif function. It’s like the formula isn’t reading the numbers in the cell as the spreadsheet was sent to me.
Anybody know why this happens? It’s stupid to go through 900 cells typing each number already in the cell to get the countif function to work.
I think I know the answer to this one. It drives many people to tears. You will probably see a little green flag in the left corner of each cell. This means that the data is being displayed but Excel doesn’t have a good way to interpret it. It could be text or a real number for all it knows. The quick solution is to highlight all the numbers, go to Data - Text to Columns and then just click through every step without doing anything else. People in my mega-corp sent this solution out en masse after I came up with this solution.
