count blank cells only if a 1 is previous

Hi
I need help getting a formula to do this
I have
......D E
5 )......1
6 )......2
7 )......3
8 )......4
9 )......5
10)......6
11)......7
etc down to 31

They only show up when the cell next to it is not empty.
=IF(ISBLANK(D5),"0",(1))
=IF(ISBLANK(D6),"0",(2))
etc

If nothing is put into say D5 D6 or D7 but something is put in D8 then i would like E8 to become 1 as it is the first to be filled.Then when D9 has something in it, it becomes 2
if D10 has nothing in it it gets left blank but when d11 has something in it e11 becomes 4 counting the blank cell in between.
How can this be done.

Any help would be great
Thanks

How about:

=IF(ISBLANK(D6),0,E5+1)

No "quotes" around numbers. Copy that down, it should do what you wanted.

Originally Posted by Directlinq

This works but if a cell is skipped it starts from 1 again and does not count the blank cell.

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If D10 has nothing in it E10 gets left blank but when d11 has something in it E11 becomes 4 counting the blank cell in between.

If you put [code] tags around stuff it will line up legibly.

Looking at your sample above, there is no clear reason why E11 would be 4?

will it always be 1s in that column D?

so isn't it just

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in reality... to avoid COUNTA repeatedly looking at the same range over and over...

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