The countblank() function does what you might expect — it counts the number of blank cells in a group that you specify. The group can consist of more than one range, such as countblank(a1:b3,a5:b7).

The counta() functions will tell you how many non-blank entries are in a group of cells. I actually had an occasion to use counta() earlier this week. I had a sort of to-do list in one column, and notes about… Read moreSimple statistics: counting entries

If you want to know how many numbers are in a given group of cells, there’s an easy way to do it: use the count() function. Imagine, for a moment, that you have a list of 100 dates. The question… Read moreSimple statistics: counting numbers

Sometimes, when working with spreadsheets, you need to know how many rows or columns are in a table, without particularly needing to know anything about their contents.

One thing that people often want to know, especially if they’re storing lists of things in spreadsheets, is “how many” there are of something. Fortunately, there are a fair number of ways to get a spreadsheet to tell you how… Read moreSimple statistics: Counting

As promised last week, today I’m going to talk about how to use a spreadsheet to calculate weighted averages in general, and Grade Point Averages (GPA) in particular.* A weighted average is just any average where some values are more… Read moreExample: GPA as a weighted average

There’s a lot of pretty amazing things that a trained statistician can tell about a set of numbers, given the right statistical tools. I, however, am not a trained statistician, and neither are most people. For most people, there’s really… Read moreFavorite functions: Simple statistics

First off, in honor of spring I just want to say that it’s time to…

Last week I promised that I’d discuss how to use text orientation in spreadsheets to make regular geometric figures. To start off with, a regular geometric figure (also known as a regular polygon) is any figure where all the sides… Read moreMaking geometric figures (a nifty trick with text orientation and cell merging)

This week I’m going to discuss the last two aspects of alignment: text orientation, and text direction. It’s easy to get these two confused, but if you don’t remember which is which it’s not like it hurts anything to try… Read moreFormatting elements: Alignment (About direction and orientation)