How to count the number of characters, letters and numbers in cell?

When you type a list of data in a cell in Excel as shown as below screenshot, you want to count the total number of all characters, or only the number of the letters, or only the numbers in the cell. Now, I talk about the methods on this count in Excel.

Count amount of characters with LEN function

Count amount of all characters except numbers with LEN function

Count amount of only numbers with LEN function

Count amount of letters and numbers with function

Count the number of a specific character with COUNTCHAR function

Count amount of characters with LEN function

If you want to count the total number of all characters, including numbers, letters and other marks in each cell, do it as follow:

1. Type this formula =LEN(A1) (the Cell A1 indicates the cell you want to count the total characters) into a blank cell, for example, the Cell B1, and click Enter button on the keyboard, and the total number of characters in Cell A1 has been counted. See screenshot:

2. Drag the fill handle to apply this formula to the range cells, and the number of characters in each cell of the list have been counted. See screenshot:

Count amount of all characters except numbers with LEN function

If you only want to the amount of letters excluding numbers in each cell, you can do as follow:

Select a blank cell, for example, the Cell B1, type this formula

=LEN(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1,0,""),1,""),2,""),3,""),4,""),5,""),6,""),7,""),8,""),9,""))

(the Cell A1 indicates the cell you want to count amount of letters except numbers, you can change it as you need), then press Enter and drag the fill handle to fill the range you want to use this formula. See screenshot:

Count amount of only numbers with LEN function

Select a blank cell, for example, the Cell B1, type this formula =SUM(LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0},))) (the Cell A1 indicates the cell you want to count only amount of numbers, you can change it as you need), then press Enter and drag the fill handle to fill the range you want to use this formula. See screenshot:

Count amount of letters and numbers with function

With this function, you not only can know how many letters or numbers in the string of the cell, but also know the orders of the letters and numbers.

1. Hold ALT button and press F11 on the keyboard to open a Microsoft Visual Basic for Application window.

2. Click Insert > Module, and copy the VBA into the module.

VBA: Count amount of letters and numbers with function

Function AlphaNumeric(pInput As String) As String
'Updateby20140303
Dim xRegex As Object
Dim xMc As Object
Dim xM As Object
Dim xOut As String
Set xRegex = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
xRegex.Global = True
xRegex.ignorecase = True
xRegex.Pattern = "[^\w]"
AlphaNumeric = ""
If Not xRegex.test(pInput) Then
    xRegex.Pattern = "(\d+|[a-z]+)"
    Set xMc = xRegex.Execute(pInput)
    For Each xM In xMc
        xOut = xOut & (xM.Length & IIf(IsNumeric(xM), "N", "L"))
    Next
    AlphaNumeric = xOut
End If
End Function

3. Save the code and close the window, and type this formula =AlphaNumeric(A1) ( the Cell A1 indicates the cell you want to count, you can change it as you need) into a blank cell, then press Enter and drag the fill handle to fill the range you want to use this formula. See screenshot:

Tip:

(1) The "L" indicates letter and "N" indicates number.

(2) This function does not work with cells containing special marks, such as !, @, #, $, %, ^, &, etc.

Count the number of a specific character with COUNTCHAR function

If you want to count the number of a specific character in a string, for example, in the string “I want to count the number of a specific in a string”, I want to count the number of character “n”, how can you do?

In this case, I introduce Kutools for Excel’s COUNTCHAR function for you.

After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as below:（Free Download Kutools for Excel Now!)

1. Type the character you want to count in a cell, see screenshot:

2. Then select a blank cell to put the result and select a blank cell which will put the counting result, and click Kutools > Kutools Functions > Statistical & Math > COUNTCHAR. See screenshot:

3. Then in the popping Function Arguments dialog, select the string into Within_text box, and select the character cell into the Find_text box. Then you can see the counting result appears in the dialog.

4. Click OK, now the result is put in the cell you select.

In Kutools Functions, you can count data by background or font color, you can sum values by same background or font color, you can convert time to decimal hours/minute/seconds and so on.

  Count the times of a specific character appears in a string

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Count times a word appears in an excel cell

If a word appears several times in a cell which needed to be count, usually, you may count them one by one. But if the word appears hundreds of times, the manually counting is troublesome. The Count times a word appears function in Kutools for Excel's Formula Helper group can quickly calculate the count of times a word appear in a cell. Free trial with full features in 30 days!

Kutools for Excel: with more than 300 handy Excel add-ins, free to try with no limitation in 30 days.

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