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In this video you'll learn about a super short formula in Excel to count cells with text and ignore blank cells, numbers and also formula cells that result in blank cells or empty strings.

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This is one of a kind Excel formula hack.

I received this special syntax for the Excel COUNTIF function from Jack, one of our community members. It works perfectly although I have no idea why. Because it looks like we are applying a wrong Excel syntax (angry eyes). If we were to write the formula "correctly" it would only exclude the truly blank cells. But cells that include formulas which result in blank cells would still be included in the count.

Alternatively, we can use the Excel COUNTIF function with the placeholders ? and *. This Excel count formula which uses wildcards, will also also just count non blank cells and ignore formulas that result in blank cells as well as ignore zeros and other numbers.

In a situation when we want to count all cells that include either text or numbers we can use SUMPRODUCT in combination with the LEN function. This way we can check if the length of the content in the cells is at least 1 character. You can replace SUMPRODUCT with SUM if you have the new Dynamic Array Excel - if you have legacy Excel and use SUM instead of SUMPRODUCT you need to press Control+shift+enter.

Key Insights:
- Rare Excel Syntax Discovery: Unearth a special syntax in Excel formulas that might have escaped even seasoned Excel users. Learn about a formula technique that's not commonly known.
- Contextual Challenge: Understand the practical challenge of counting text values in Excel, excluding numbers, blank cells, and formulas resulting in empty strings.
- Formula Demonstration: Watch as we test this unusual formula, achieving accurate text counts and excluding non-text elements.
- Alternatives Explored: Compare the mysterious formula with more traditional methods like wildcard characters in the COUNTIF function and the versatile SUMPRODUCT formula.
- Practical Application: See how these formulas can be applied in real-world scenarios, enhancing your data analysis and Excel efficiency.

00:00 How to Count Text Cells in Excel
02:07 Excel formula hack to count text cells
02:52 Alternate Excel formula to count text cells (with wildcards)
03:49 Count all cells except the truly blank cells in Excel
04:30 Count all text cells and numbers but exclude blank cells and formulas that result in blank cells

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