Counting the Results of a Formula Using Find and Replace

Hank has a worksheet for each item his company manufactures, listing in columns, among other data, the estimated and actual costs for each component used in manufacturing the item. There could be anywhere from 600 to 3,000 rows for each worksheet. In column AL there is a calculated Total Variance for each row. In column AW Hank displays the word "Investigate" if the Total Variance is out of bounds. He needs to count the number of times the word "Investigate" appears in this column, but has not been successful using Find and Replace to do this.

If you are bound and determined to use Find and Replace to get your count, then you should follow these steps:

1. Press Ctrl+F. Excel displays the Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
2. In the Find What box, type "Investigate" (without the quote marks).
3. Using the Look In drop-down list, choose the Values option. (If you cannot see the Look In drop-down list, click the Options button.)
4. Click Find All. Excel expands the Find and Replace dialog box downward to include a list of all cells found that contain the word "Investigate." At the bottom-left of the dialog box you can see a count of the number of matches found.

That being said, using Find and Replace may not be the best approach. You may get extraneous information in your results, such as an instance of the word "Investigate" that appears in a different cell than one in column AW. Instead, consider just using a simple formula:

=COUNTIF(AW:AW,"Investigate")

This formula, if placed in a column other than AW, will return the total count of cells displaying "Investigate" in column AW. If there may be other characters on either side of the word (such as spaces), then you should change the formula slightly to include encasing asterisks:

=COUNTIF(AW:AW,"*Investigate*")

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (13871) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.