Count occurrences of text within cells - not exact match

[bigmonkey712]

Hi,

I have a number of lists with various versions of same items but want to count key parts of text within cell.

For example:

Column A
Back bacon
Smoked bacon
Rindless bacon

I would use countif(A:A,"*bacon*") to return the value 3.

However I want to take this a step further and have a cell where I can type the word bacon and it returns 3 but I could type smoked instead and get 1.

For example:

Column A remains as above but in say B2 i type bacon and in another cell I have the formula as above but instead of bacon it references B2 so I can type anything I want and get a count of that item.

I have tried countif(A:A,"*B2*") and various syntax variants but no luck.

Any ideas?

Many Thanks

S

 

[Eric W]

Try:

=COUNTIF(A:A,"*"&B2&"*")

 

[bigmonkey712]

Perfect. Thanks

 

[Eric W]

Glad to help. Thanks for the feedback.