COUNTIF Function (OpenOffice Calc)

• Counts cells that meet a single condition
• Supports numeric, text, and logical criteria
• Allows comparison operators (>, <, >=, <>, etc.)
• Supports wildcard matching (* and ?)
• Works across sheets
• Ideal for filtering, categorizing, and validating data

COUNTIF is the foundation of conditional counting in spreadsheets.

COUNTIF(range; criteria)

Arguments:

• range — The cells to evaluate
• criteria — The condition to apply

COUNTIF supports:

• * — matches any sequence of characters
• ? — matches any single character
• ~ — escapes literal * or ?

Examples:

• "A*" matches any text starting with A
• "*Service*" matches text containing “Service”
• "???" matches any 3‑character string
• "~*" matches a literal asterisk

Count cells equal to a value

=COUNTIF(A1:A10; 5)

Count cells greater than a number

=COUNTIF(A1:A10; ">50")

Count cells equal to text

=COUNTIF(A1:A10; "North")

Count cells matching a wildcard pattern

=COUNTIF(A1:A10; "Jan*")

Matches any text beginning with “Jan”.

Count non‑empty cells (COUNTA alternative)

=COUNTIF(A1:A100; "<>")

Counts all cells that are not empty.

Count cells across sheets

=COUNTIF(Sheet1.A1:A100; ">0")

Count cells using a cell‑based criterion

=COUNTIF(A1:A10; C1)

If C1 contains ">=500", the formula uses that condition.

Count cells not equal to something

=COUNTIF(A1:A10; "<>North")

Count cells containing partial text

=COUNTIF(A1:A100; "*Service*")

Count dates before or after a specific date

=COUNTIF(A1:A100; ">=" & DATE(2025;1;1))

Count text values only

=COUNTIF(A1:A100; "<>") - COUNT(A1:A100)

Count blank cells (alternative to COUNTBLANK)

=COUNTIF(A1:A100; "=")

Count cells with formulas returning empty strings

=COUNTIF(A1:A100; "")

• Use quotes for all text and comparison criteria
• Use cell references for dynamic criteria
• Use wildcards for flexible text matching
• Clean imported data to remove hidden spaces
• Use COUNTIFS for multi‑criteria counting
• Use named ranges for cleaner formulas