Use countif across multiple tabs for a column

[marconexcel]

Originally Posted by jeffreybrown

See how this works for you...

=SUMPRODUCT(COUNTIF(INDIRECT("'"&MySheets&"'!B:B") ,"Item"))

List all your tab names and create a named range called MySheets

Thanks for your reply. I've tried several iterations to define a named range with tab names but I can't get the thing to work. I tried =Jan!ec! and ended up with Jan!:jan:dec (which gave me all columns from dec through jan on tab Jan). I tried Jan!,Feb!, through Dec! and got an error message. Is there a trick to listing all twelve tabs (Jan through Dec) in a named range? I would definitely appreciate any help you can give me with this naming convention.
Thanks for your help.