assigning a value to a cell

[Guest]

Ok here is my senario:

I have a student roster with NAMES, NUMBERS, CODES, ETC. I would like to
assign the number 1 to each cell in the NAME column that has any type of text
in the cell. If there is no text then I would like to assign the number 0.

Exmpl:

Column A Column B

Joe Schmo 1
Tina Turner 1
George W. 1
"No Text" 0
Shizam 1
"No Text" 0
Balthazar 1

Total = SUM(B1:B7)

 

[Guest]

=IF(ISTEXT(A1),1,0)

see if this does the trick.

 

[RagDyer]

Why not eliminate the "middle man", and just count the contents of the
column?

Try either of these:

=COUNTA(A1:A10)

=COUNTIF(A1:A10,"*?")

 

[Guest]

=if(<column A cell>="",0,1)
or
=if(ISBLANK(<column A cell>),0,1)

see which one works better for you.