COUNTIF function

[Marti Shelley]

I am using the countif function to add cells with a given value.  It is working great.  EXCEPT, if that value occupies a cell that has been merged, I need it to recognize the value in BOTH cells.  It is only counting the first cell as having that value, and marking the second cell (or any additional cells) as blank and giving me an error in the formula box.  I'm VERY new to excel and the formulas.  I've read the help boxes on how to fix it, but they don't seem to make sense.  Suggestins?

[#2]

Hi Marti,

First and main advise don't use merged cells. Never. Playing with not-merged cells formatting you practically always may have the same formatting effect as with merged cells.

If calculate on merged cells that could be a workaround but the formula will be in times more complex and it very depends on how is your data structured.