Countif and Countifs

I am having difficulty with a table in Excel 2007. For each line on the table I want a total of the number of times the letter c appears. However, I only want to check certain cells that are not adjacent to each other. So I can't put a range of cells in the formula to check. I can't use the regular Countif(s) syntax because it does not understand the seperation of the inputs by the commas. I have tried numerous different formulas with every symbol I can think of to no avail. So how do use this count formula when the cells you want the formula to look at are individual seperated cells and not ranges of cells?

Thanks!

I will try.
The sample workbook has two lines of a medical clinic's providers schedules. The last 3 columns are the ones I want to use the formula in. In the 1st or "AM" column there I want to see the number of times the letter c appears in the "AM" column for each provider. For example, in cell AA3, I want to see how many times the "C" appears in cells C3,F3,I3,L3,O3,R3,U3, AND X3. In cell AB3, I want to see how many times the "C" appears in cells D3,G3,J3,M3,P3,S3,V3, AND Y3, etc.

I hope I have explained this well enough and that I attached the workbook correctly.

Brian

Put this formula in cell AA3:

Formula:

=COUNTIFS($C$2:$Z$2,AA$2,$C3:$Z3,"C")

then copy it into AB3:AC3, then copy AA3:AC3 down as far as you need to.

Hope this helps.

Pete

Here's what I did that seemed to work:
In Cell AA I put your recommended formula =COUNTIFS($C$2:$Z$2,AA$2,$C3:$Z3,"C") However, if I copied that same formula into AB it did not work, so I changed cell AB to =COUNTIFS($C$2:$Z$2,AB$2,$C3:$Z3,"C") and AC to =COUNTIFS($C$2:$Z$2,AC$2,$C3:$Z3,"C"). This seemd to work, even after I pasted those three formulas into the next line.

If I could ask one more thing... If I wanted to do the exact same thing but count up the sum of all "C", "P", and "NICU" cells, what would the formulas be?

BTW, if the people who responded ever have the time and patience I would love to have an English translation of what the symbology of these formulas actually means!

Thanks again!

AA3: =COUNTIFS($C$2:$Z$2,AA$2,$C3:$Z3,"C")

copy across and down

Wow, that was fast! It looks to be all correct except any line that has "NICU", because it counts that too. I think in "countif" it will count a cell if the letter is anywhere in the cell, and that one has both N and C, so it is counting that cell.

I tried it again, and for some reason there are 3 lines where the AM numbers are not correct. I attached the workbook with the formula answers as well as the correct answers. maybe you can figure what I am doing wrong.

Thank you so much! I could have never figured that out by myself. I'm glad you had a way to account for the spaces. Like I said, I inherited this schedule so there is no telling how many cells have trailing spaces in them! Now I have to get back to my patients.

Best Regards,
Brian Alexander, alias Provider #1