Open Office Spreadsheet problem (1 Viewer)

[Andy Hurley]

Help please!
I keep spreadsheets for bird species seen. For my year list, I am trying to make a table that automatically counts the species seen per month in any one year.

Column A is the species seen, column B is the month they are seen.

I tried the COUNTIF and COUNTA fx's, but I can't get them to work.

Syntax used:
=COUNTIF(B1:B500;'January') then change month name for each line in the results table, but it doesn't work.

=COUNTA(B1:B500;'January') produces the correct result +1 and when I change the month to February, I get the same result, although there are no entries for February.
EDIT: It doesn't seem to matter what word I write in column B, all words +1 are being counted for each month. I can write eg cow and it still gets counted..

Black headed Gull​	January​	​	January​	25​	Species​
Carrion Crow​	January​	​	February​	25​	Species​
Common Blackbird​	January​	​	March​	​	Species​
Common Buzzard​	January​	​	April​	​	Species​
Common Chaffinch​	January​	​	May​	​	Species​
Common Crane​	January​	​	June​	​	Species​
Common Kestrel​	January​	​	July​	​	Species​
Common Magpie​	January​	​	August​	​	Species​
Common Starling​	January​	​	September​	​	Species​
Common Wood Pigeon​	January​	​	October​	​	Species​
Egyptian Goose​	January​	​	November​	​	Species​
Eurasian Jay​	January​	​	December​	​	Species​
European Goldfinch​	January​	​	Total 2023​	50​	Species​
European Herring Gull​	January​	​	​	​	​
European Robin​	January​	​	​	​	​
Feral Pigeon​	January​	​	​	​	​
Great Egret​	January​	​	​	​	​
Great Spotted Woodpecker​	January​	​	​	​	​
Great Tit​	January​	​	​	​	​
Grey Heron​	January​	​	​	​	​
Greylag Goose​	January​	​	​	​	​
House Sparrow​	January​	​	​	​	​
Mallard​	January​	​	​	​	​
Rook​	January​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	​	​	​	​

Any ideas what will work?

Thanks very much

 

[StuartReeves]

Try using the numbers of the months (i.e. 1 for January, 2 for February etc.) instead of the names.

 

[THE_FERN]

It is likely that what seem to be text entries ("January" etc) are in fact numbers. Spreadsheets generally store dates and times in this way. If you coerce the entries to be text (e.g. using =text(A1,"mmm") or OO equivalent) the countif etc will work.

 

[Andy Hurley]

Thanks very much guys!