COUNTA

COUNTA is a spreadsheet function used to count the number of non-empty cells within a specified range or set of values. It treats any cell that contains data as non-empty, including numbers, text, dates, logical values, errors, and the results of formulas. It does not count truly empty cells.

Syntax and usage notes: The standard syntax is COUNTA(value1, [value2], ...). You can pass a single range, multiple ranges, or individual values. COUNTA is often used when you need to count cells that contain any type of data, not just numbers. In contrast, the COUNT function counts only numeric values, and COUNTA will include cells with text, errors, or boolean values as well.

Behavior to consider: In many spreadsheet programs, a cell containing a formula that returns an empty string "" is still considered non-empty, so COUNTA will count such cells. This distinguishes COUNTA from ISBLANK, which treats truly empty cells as blank. COUNTA can be used with ranges, array literals, or combinations of ranges and values, depending on the software’s syntax limits.

Examples: In Excel or Google Sheets, =COUNTA(A1:A10) returns the number of non-empty cells in A1 through A10. Similarly, =COUNTA(A1:A10, C1:C5) counts non-empty cells across multiple ranges. COUNTA is commonly used for quick data tallies where the presence of any content matters.