Which function would you use to determine how many cells contain numbers in Excel?

The function that would be used to determine how many cells contain numbers in Excel is COUNT. This function specifically counts the number of cells that contain numeric values, making it ideal for situations where you want to evaluate how many cells in a given range hold numbers.

When you apply the COUNT function, it only considers cells with numeric entries and ignores any blank cells, text, or error values. This precise functionality is what distinguishes it from other functions.

For example, if you have a range of cells with a combination of numbers, text, and blanks, using COUNT will provide a total that reflects only those cells that contain numbers, which is particularly useful in data analysis and reports where quantifying numeric data is necessary.

While other functions, such as AVERAGE, might also deal with numbers, they perform different operations. AVERAGE calculates the mean of the numeric values but does not return the count of numeric cells. COUNTA counts all non-empty cells regardless of whether they contain text or numbers, which is not suitable if you are interested specifically in numeric cells. SUM would simply add up the numbers in the selected range rather than counting them, thus also not serving the intended purpose.