What count function do I use for an "and/or" type calculation?

[guycox]

Quite a simple problem, but it’s got me - very much a calc novice - stumped. I’d like to count nonblank rows in a two column database, and have CALC count 1 if either one or both cells are nonblank. It’s a bird list, with various localities, and I want to know total number of species - that’s easy to do per column using COUNTA but how do I make COUNTA work over two columns, counting TRUE or 1 for every time one or both cells contain data?

Many thanks!
guycox
www.toucanbirding.com

[ROSt53]

You can count over 2 colums the same way you only need to make the argument of the COUNTA function covering the area of cells in which you count the nonblank cells.

E.g
Your 2 colums covern the area:

• a2:a5 for column 1
• b2:b5 for column 2
  thus to count both colums the formular must look like =counta(a2:b5)

Be careful a “space” in cell is not visible but is not an empty cell thus is counted.