excel question.

[sanjeev]

suppose if I have a list of name and I want to know how many of the names contain less than 5 character. How do I do it?

[EJG]

The "len" function returns the number of characters in a text string.

So suppose you had the names in cells A1 to A50.

In cell B1, put =len(A1).

Copy/paste that down the B column.

Then use =countif(B1:B50,"<5") in the next cell.

Or did you want <= 5, I forget. If you wanted that, use <= 5 (or < 6).