2 excel formula questions

Hello there...I realize this is not exactly the best place for an excel question but i had nowhere to turn. If anyone knows how to create these two formulas it'd be a huge help. I no very little excel.

1. I am tring to get the count of DISTINCT values in a ranges not including blanks. I have this so far whis counts ignoring blanks but counts duplicates as 2 not one.

=COUNTA(B20:B50)

2. There is 2 columns beside each other. One with numbers, the one beside with wither an 'A' or "I' (for active and inactive). I would like to capture the sum of all the values with an 'A' beside it. I have no idea where to start on htat one???

Thanks in advance!!!!!!

You could use the CountIf formula to count only those valuse that match the criteria.

Example: CountIf(A3:A6,"Inactive")

This will give you the total of those cells that are in active.

You could also use the Conditional Formating in FORMAT on the tool bar to highlight any cells that fall within the same criteria.

I hope this helps.

That wasn't what I was looking for. I may not have been clear. Here is example data:

column A column b
12 A
10 I
25 A


I am looking for the sum in column A that have an "A" in the same row of column B. Therefore, 37.

My other problem the column may look like this:

column A
12
13
14
12

12

I am looking for the count of non-blank distinct values. Therefore, 3.

Hope that is clearer. Thanks again to anyone with insight....