Slow down using COUNTIF

Hi

I have a spreadsheet using around 50,000 rows and each row has a formula to count the frequency of an item.

I was going to use COUNTIF to determine the total times an occurrence was found but found that the recalculation time just caused the sheet to stop functioning, or at least work so slowly that is might as well have been.

I have a solution using VBA which works well, if not quite as quicKly as I would like.

However I have a couple of questions regarding the slowdown.

1. Is this common when counting the results of calculations?
2. Am I correct assuming that there is little that can be done except work around it?

Regards


Jeff

Thanks for the tips I will see if I can get them to fit in with my sheet.

Regards


Jeff