Counting blanks in non-adjacent cells

Hi everyone,
I want to count blank cells in every third column in a worksheet.
Each row contains around 100 cells - the third of which is a drop-down indicating a status...open, closed, etc.
Ideally I want a counter at the start of each row - the rows represent a particular task - to indicate how many statuses have not yet been assigned.
Something more concise than a string of countblanks possibly…?
Any ideas appreciated.

So which columns are we talking about? B, E, H etc., or C, F, I etc., or D, G, J etc., and how far do they extend to? Which is the first row that you want the formula on?

Pete

Hi Pete,
Row 1 will be headings so Row 2 will be the first requiring a counter.
The rows extend to over 100 columns - but is added to frequently.
Columns C, F, I etc would be the ones I was looking to count...
Many thanks.

Okay, try this in either A2 or B2:

Formula:

=SUMPRODUCT((MOD((COLUMN($C2:$DW2),3)=0)*($C2:$DW2=""))

Adjust the range to suit (I guessed at DW), then copy down.

If your range is constantly increasing, perhaps you can use a much bigger range and if you only fill the headers in when the columns are used, then you could have another test to see if row 1 cells are empty - a big range will slow down the calculation speed, however.

Hope this helps.

Pete

Thanks Pete - Superfast reply which I'll try out when I get into work in the morning...

There's an extra comma not needed after MOD - otherwise PERFECT!
Thanks Pete - much appreciated.