Countif and Concatenation

As any longtime user of Excel will tell you, Countif is a powerful tool that is frequently useful. To maximize the use of this function, you can reference cell locations through the use of concatenation (simply an “&” in this case).

For instance, if you wish to count only cells that are greater than the value in a particular cell, (A30 in this example), you should use Quotation Marks for the Greater Than symbol, and an & preceding the cell reference:

=COUNTIF(A1:A29, ">"&A30)

Give it a try. Countif may be even More Powerful than you thought!