Summarize alpha-numeric contents of columns

[rdoherty]

Hello,

I have an excel file that contains a couple hundred rows of alphanumeric data (a letter followed by a number [1-999]). Analysis of that data consists of counting the occurances within each column (which i'm able to do using the COUNTA function). I'm looking for a function that will summarize the content of each occurance (ie. have a summary row for each letter of the alphabet that will count the occurances of that letter in the alphanumeric data throughout the column).

Ryan

[NBVC]

Will this do?

=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$100,"A*")

where A1:A100 contain the codes...

This formula will count the items that start with the letter A.

If you have the letter A in another cell such as a heading...you can revise the formula to:

=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$100,C1&"*") where C1 contains that letter to reference