Excel track · Exercise 18 of 86 Paid
COUNTA: count the non-empty cells
Count filled cells rather than numbers, so a checklist reports real progress.
Beginner
A five-step checklist
Read-only data · answer in B7
In B7, count how many of the five steps have a date in B2:B6.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Step | Done on |
| 2 | Draft | 2026-03-02 |
| 3 | Review | |
| 4 | Publish | 2026-03-09 |
| 5 | Announce | |
| 6 | Archive | 2026-04-01 |
| 7 | Steps done |
Reference answer
What it does
COUNTA counts the cells in a range that hold something, whatever it is: a date, a word, a space. Only empty cells are left out. Three of the five cells in B2:B6 hold a date, so the answer is 3.
COUNT asks the narrower question and returns 0 on this column, because the dates sit in it as text rather than as date values. On a checklist the empty cells carry the meaning: each one is a step nobody has started, and the filled ones are the progress report.
A cell holding a single space counts as filled. Clean the stray spaces out of a checklist and the total drops to the number of steps really finished.
Syntax
=COUNTA(value1, [value2], ...)Worked example
On A five-step checklist, =COUNTA(B2:B6) returns 3.
=COUNTA(B2:B6)Common errors
| Error | What it means and how to fix it |
|---|---|
Counts spaces | A cell with a space typed into it counts as filled, so progress rises without any work being done. |
Wrong function | COUNT over B2:B6 answers 0, because it looks for numbers and the dates are text. |
#NAME? | COUNTA typed with an extra letter is not a function Excel knows, so the cell shows an error. |
At work
A launch checklist where each empty cell is a step still to do and the dated ones are what the status deck reports.