Excel formula: Count total characters in a range

Generic formula

=SUMPRODUCT(LEN(rng))

Summary

If you want to count the total characters in a range of cells, you can do with a formula that uses LEN, along with the SUMPRODUCT function. In the generic form of the formula above, rng represents a range of cells that contain text.

In the example, the active cell contains this formula:

=SUMPRODUCT(LEN(B3:B6))

Explanation

SUMPRODUCT accepts the range B3:B6 as an array of four cells. For each cell in the array, LEN calculates the length of the text as a number. The result is an array that contains 4 numbers. SUMPRODUCT then sums the items in this array and returns the total.

Author

Dave Bruns

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Excel LEN Function

The Excel LEN function returns the length of a given text string as the number of characters. LEN will also count characters in numbers, but number formatting is not included.

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