=COUNTIF problem

[burnsbyrne]

I set up a sheet with a column of text values and used COUNTIF to count the number of each variable. The format was =countif(b2:b59,"2A"). This worked fine until I copied it to another similar spreadsheet. I adjusted the cell references, etc., but it returns a value of 0.0. I tried deleting the formula and typing it in from scratch and it still doesn't work. Does anybody know what's going on here?

[pikapika13]

What result do you get if you did =countif(range,"2A*")???

[burnsbyrne]

What result do you get if you did =countif(range,"2A*")???

Adding the "*" did the trick. Do you know why?

[pikapika13]

Without the wildcard "*" your original formula will not match 2A with...lets say:
"2A-BC". It will require an exact match.
If you dont' think there are extra characters after your source data, I would check for unwanted spaces. Let me know if it is spaces that is causing the problem bc again..."2A" will not match with "2A ".

[burnsbyrne]

There are definitely spaces after the "2A", as well as all the other variables such as 3A, CMU, and ICU. Thanks for your help. I would never have figured it out by myself!