How to use a cells content to reference a sheet?

Question

I am working on a project just on Excel, not using VBA. I am trying to use a COUNTIF function to count the number of times C3 (the user types what they want to search into C3). I have four spreadsheets to search, the name of the spreadsheet the user wants to search is typed into С4. So the formula I have right now is =Countif('C4'!A2:A550,C3).

This doesn't work. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Use =INDIRECT()

=COUNTIF(INDIRECT(C4&"!A2:A550"),C3)

By using INDIRECT() you can string together the range address as a string; Excel will interpret the range address from the string you provide.

INDIRECT function