Using COUNTIF with Colors

Roger is wondering if there is way to use the COUNTIF function using the cell background color as the "if" criteria. He has a calendar and he wants to be able to count the number of days he highlights in purple or other colors.

The short answer is that COUNTIF cannot be used to check for background color or any formatting; it can only test for values. If you only need to figure out the number of purple cells once or twice, you can use Excel's Find and Replace feature to figure it out. Follow these steps:

1. Select the cells that make up your calendar.
2. Press Ctrl+F. Excel displays the Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
3. Click the Options button, if it is available. Excel expands the dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.

4. Make sure the Find What box is empty.
5. Click the Format button. Excel displays the Find Format dialog box. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Find Format dialog box.

6. Click the Choose Format From Cell button, at the bottom of the dialog box. The Find Format dialog box disappears and the mouse pointer changes to a plus sign with an eyedropper next to it.
7. Click on a cell that is formatted like those you want to find. (In other words, click on a purple cell.) The mouse pointer returns to normal.
8. Click Find All. The Find and Replace dialog box expands to list all cells matching the format, and there is a count of the cells at the bottom of the dialog box.
9. Click Close to dismiss the Find and Replace dialog box.

Of course, these steps might get tedious if you want to count more than a color or two. Or, you may want the count so you can use it in a different calculation of some type. In these instances, you would do better to create a user-defined function that examines the cells and returns a count. One such macro is CountColorIf:

Function CountColorIf(rSample As Range, rArea As Range) As Long
    Dim rAreaCell As Range
    Dim lMatchColor As Long
    Dim lCounter As Long

    lMatchColor = rSample.Interior.Color
    For Each rAreaCell In rArea
        If rAreaCell.Interior.Color = lMatchColor Then
            lCounter = lCounter + 1
        End If
    Next rAreaCell
    CountColorIf = lCounter
End Function

In order to use the macro, all you need to do is provide a cell that has the background color you want tested and the range to be tested. For instance, let's say that cell A57 is formatted with the same purple background color you use in your calendar cells. If the calendar is located in cells A1:G6, then you could use the following to get the count of purple cells:

=CountColorIf(A57, A1:G6)

It should be noted that if you change the color in a cell in your calendar, then you'll need to do something to force a recalculation of the worksheet. It seems that Excel doesn't do an automatic recalculation after changing background color.

There are, of course, many different ways you could approach the problem and develop user-defined functions such as CountColorIf. Here are a few other websites that contain information that may be helpful in this regard:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/colors.aspx
https://www.ozgrid.com/VBA/sum-count-cells-by-color.htm
http://xldynamic.com/source/xld.ColourCounter.html

There are also some third-party add-ons available that you could use. One such add-on suggested by readers is Kutools for Excel. You can find more information on the add-on here:

https://www.extendoffice.com/product/kutools-for-excel.html

One final note—the ideas in this tip work fine if you are working with cells that are explicitly filled with colors. They will not work with cells that are colored using Conditional Formatting. That is an entirely different kettle to boil, as Conditional Formatting doesn't really give you anything you can latch onto easily.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11725) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365.