Counting Distinct Values

Hi,

Hope you all had a good Christmas. Is there a way to count the number of distinct values that appear in a column either by a formula or macro?

ie. in this list it would return the value 4 as orange appears twice so should only be counted once.

apple
orange
pear
orange
grape

Thanks in advance,

GW

This should work for you.


=SUMPRODUCT((A20:A25<>"")/COUNTIF(A20:A25,A20:A25&""))

Where A20:A25 is your range of data.

Cheers,

Steve

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Bernard V Liengme
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
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"giantwolf" <[email protected]> wrote
in message news:[email protected]...
>
> Hi,
>
> Hope you all had a good Christmas. Is there a way to count the number
> of distinct values that appear in a column either by a formula or
> macro?
>
> ie. in this list it would return the value 4 as orange appears twice so
> should only be counted once.
>
> apple
> orange
> pear
> orange
> grape
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> GW
>
>
> --
> giantwolf
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> giantwolf's Profile:
> http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=24718
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=496644
>

one way:

=SUMPRODUCT((A1:A99<>"")/COUNTIF(A1:A99,A1:A99&""))

(adjust the range to match, but don't use the whole column)

giantwolf wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Hope you all had a good Christmas. Is there a way to count the number
> of distinct values that appear in a column either by a formula or
> macro?
>
> ie. in this list it would return the value 4 as orange appears twice so
> should only be counted once.
>
> apple
> orange
> pear
> orange
> grape
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> GW
>
> --
> giantwolf
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> giantwolf's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=24718
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=496644

--

Dave Peterson

Thanks guys, the sumproduct/countif formula worked perfectly. Much appreciated.

Have a good New Year,

GW