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Excel is a powerful and versatile tool that can be used to perform a variety of tasks. One such task is counting the number of specific characters in a column. This can be useful in a multitude of situations, such as analyzing customer data, tracking sales figures, or monitoring stock levels. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to use Excel to count the number of specific characters in a column. We’ll also discuss the importance of counting these characters and the different ways Excel can be used to make this task easier and more efficient.
You can use the following formulas in Excel to count specific characters in a column:
Formula 1: Count Specific Characters in One Cell
=LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"r",""))
This particular formula counts the number of characters equal to “r” in cell A2.
Formula 2: Count Specific Characters in Entire Range
=SUMPRODUCT(LEN(A2:A11)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2:A11,"r","")))
This particular formula counts the number of characters equal to “r” in the entire range A2:A11.
The following examples show how to use each formula in practice with the following list of basketball team names in Excel:
Let’s jump in!
Example 1: Count Specific Characters in One Cell
We can type the following formula into cell B2 to count the number of characters equal to “r” in cell A2:
=LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"r",""))
We can then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column B:
Column B now displays the total number of characters in the corresponding cell in column A that ar equal to “r”.
For example:
- Mavs contains 0 characters equal to “r”
- Spurs contains 1 character equal to “r”
- Rockets contains 0 characters equal to “r”
And so on.
Note: This formula is case-sensitive.
Example 2: Count Specific Characters in Entire Range
We can type the following formula into cell D1 to count the number of characters equal to “r” in the entire range A2:A11:
=SUMPRODUCT(LEN(A2:A11)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2:A11,"r","")))
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
The formula tells us that there are a total of 7 characters equal to “r” among all cells in the range A2:A11.