I have a strange problem in my excel data. I don't know if I can upload a sample workbook, in the meantime I try to describe the problem.
In my database I have a column (formatted as text) with many blank cells. The problem is that, for unknown reasons, some of these "blank" cells are not really blank. At the moment, there are 1004 records total (this is not important, it's just to use actual figures): if I filter with the regular excel filter (the one on top of the column), selecting all values EXCEPT blanks, I get 374 records selected. If I use the function COUNTA, I get 395 records; if I use the function COUNTBLANK I get 630 records. Since 395+630 is 1025 and the records are only 1004, this makes little sense to me: some records are counted twice, once with the blanks and once with the non-blanks.
I noticed the problem because the pivot table based on the database and counting the non-blank records related to that column was giving the wrong results as well (I KNOW that 374 records is correct). Comparing the results of the filtering and of the pivot, I was able to isolate the "wrong" records: canceling the cell contents in the column in these records, the pivot table and the functions give the correct results. In those cells there seems to be something, but I don't know what that is:
1) if I apply the function CODE to one of those cells, I get #VALUE?;
2) If I apply the function LEN, I get 0 (zero)
I assume that this means that there is absolutely nothing there.: so what are COUNTA and the pivot table counting?
I apologize if I am not being clear: this problem is driving me crazy, because the pivot table are the basis of all statistics I need on the database. Thanks in advance for any suggestion
Robert, Italy