Skip to content
Free Excel Tutorials
  • Home
  • Excel For Beginners
  • Excel Intermediate
  • Advanced Excel For Experts

Data Analysis

  • How to create a Histogram in Excel
  • Get column name from index in Excel Table
  • Excel Pie Chart
  • Conditional Formatting Color Scales Examples in Excel
  • Understanding Pivot Tables in Excel

References

  • How to use Excel OFFSET function
  • How to get last row in text data in Excel
  • Offset in Excel
  • How to get last row in mixed data with blanks in Excel
  • How to use Excel ROWS Function

Data Validations

  • Excel Data validation require unique number
  • Excel Data validation date in specific year
  • How To Create Drop-down List in Excel
  • Excel Data validation don’t exceed total
  • Excel Data validation whole percentage only

Count long numbers without COUNTIF in Excel

by

This tutorial shows how to Count long numbers without COUNTIF in Excel using the example below;

Formula

=SUMPRODUCT(--(A:A=A1))

Explanation

This is an annoyingly long introduction, but the context is important, sorry!

If you try to count very long numbers (16+ digits) in a range with COUNTIF, you may see incorrect results, due to a bug in how certain functions handle long numbers, even when those numbers are stored as text. Consider the screen below. All counts in column D are incorrect —although each number in column B is unique, the count returned by COUNTIF suggests these numbers are duplicates.

Note: All counts are incorrect. Numbers are unique but appears to be duplicated.

=COUNTIF(data,B5)

This problem is related to how Excel handles numbers. Excel can only handle 15 significant digits, and if you enter a number with more than 15 digits in Excel, you’ll see the trailing digits silently converted to zero. The counting problem mentioned above arises from this limit.

Normally, you can avoid this limit by entering long numbers as text, either by starting the number with a single quote (‘999999999999999999) or by formatting the cell(s) as Text before entering. As long as you don’t need to perform math operations on a number, this is a good solution, and it lets you enter extra long numbers for things like like credit card numbers and serial numbers without losing any numbers.

However, if you try to use COUNTIF to count a number with more than 15 digits (even when stored as text)  you may see unreliable results. This happens because COUNTIF internally converts the long value back to a number at some point during processing, triggering the 15 digit limit described above. Without all digits present, some numbers may be counted like duplicates when counted with COUNTIF.

Solution

One solution is to replace the COUNTIF formula with a formula that uses SUM or SUMPRODUCT. In the example shown, the formula in E5 looks like this:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(data=B5))

The formula uses the named range “data” (B5:B9) and generates the correct count for each number with SUMPRODUCT.

How this formula works

First, the expression inside SUMPRODUCT compares all values in the named range “data” with the value from column B in the current row. This results in an array of TRUE/FALSE results.

=SUMPRODUCT(--(data=B5))
=SUMPRODUCT(--({TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE}))

Next, the double negative coerces the TRUE/FALSE values to 1/0 values.

=SUMPRODUCT({1;0;0;0;0})

Finally, SUMPRODUCT simply sums the items in the array and returns the result.

Array formula variant

You can also use the SUM function instead of SUMPRODUCT, but this is an array formula and must be entered with control + shift + enter:

{=SUM(--(B:B=B5))}

Post navigation

Previous Post:

How to use Excel CHOOSE Function

Next Post:

Customize Ribbon In Excel

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Learn Basic Excel

Ribbon
Workbook
Worksheets
Format Cells
Find & Select
Sort & Filter
Templates
Print
Share
Protect
Keyboard Shortcuts

Categories

  • Charts
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Validation
  • Excel Functions
    • Cube Functions
    • Database Functions
    • Date and Time Functions
    • Engineering Functions
    • Financial Functions
    • Information Functions
    • Logical Functions
    • Lookup and Reference Functions
    • Math and Trig Functions
    • Statistical Functions
    • Text Functions
    • Web Functions
  • Excel VBA
  • Excel Video Tutorials
  • Formatting
  • Grouping
  • Others

Logical Functions

  • Extract multiple matches into separate rows in Excel
  • How to use Excel FALSE Function
  • Invoice status with nested if in Excel
  • OR function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • FALSE function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation

Date Time

  • Display Date is workday in Excel
  • EDATE function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • How to calculate most recent day of week in Excel
  • EOMONTH function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • NETWORKDAYS.INTL function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation

Grouping

  • Group numbers with VLOOKUP in Excel
  • Group arbitrary text values in Excel
  • How to randomly assign data to groups in Excel
  • Map inputs to arbitrary values in Excel
  • Group times into 3 hour buckets in Excel

General

  • Using Existing Templates in Excel
  • Count cells that contain errors in Excel
  • How to make excel worksheets print on one page?
  • How to calculate profit margin percentage in Excel
  • Mark Workbook as Final in Excel
© 2023 xlsoffice . All Right Reserved. | Teal Smiles | Abbreviations And Their Meaning