title: Excel COUNTIF special characters
body: <p>Is it possible to count specific special characters in a whole column?</p>
  
  <p>I am trying to count all the commas <code>" , "</code> in a column and this is what i am using:</p>
  
  <pre><code>=COUNTIF(D3:D45, "=,")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The problem is that this only counts the commas that are alone in a cell. If i add anything else to the cell, before or after the comma, it will not count.</p>
  
  <p>Examples of the cells that i am counting:</p>
  
  <p>Cell#1:    <code>73(1), 210(5), 422(6),</code></p>
  
  <p>Cell#2:    <code>862(51),</code></p>
  
  <p>Cell#3:    <code>26(3), 156(6), 451(19),</code></p>
  
  <p>The expected output is 7
  The actual output is 0</p>