formula to count cells that shart with text

I have a spreadsheet that lists patients Health Card numbers. The difference between Ontario health card numbers and Quebec health card numbers, is that Quebec card numbers contain 4 letters at the beginning instead of numbers followed by letters like the Ontario ones.

I have my list starting in column H1 to H1500

I need to find a formula that will let me count the cells that start with text.

Any ideas would be welcomed as I have spent most of this morning trying to figure out something!

Thanks,

Jeepjenn

Could I presume that Ontario ones are all numbers? If so you could use something like

=SUM(ISTEXT($H$1:$H$1500)*1)

This is an array formulae so needs to be entered using Ctrl+Shift+Enter

If not I would maybe use a helper column to strip the first four letters off, using =LEFT(xx,4) and work with that. Post back if you need further help

In this particular instance, would it be okay to just test for the first character being non-numeric?

=SUMPRODUCT(--($H$2:$H$20<>""),--(NOT(ISNUMBER(--(LEFT($H$2:$H$20,1))))))

BOB! You are a genius!  Thanks for the help!

that would work either:

=COUNTA(H1:H1500)-COUNT(H1:H1500)

GOOD LUCK..