title: Using ranges in formula in Excel
body: <p>I will give you an example right away. I have dates in a column (F) as text in this format. <code>Jan 31, 2014 12:55 PM PST</code></p>
  
  <p>I can convert these to dates using <code>DATEVALUE((LEFT(F5,12))),</code> </p>
  
  <p>But I want to do this conversion on the fly when I am using this range as an argument for a countif function:</p>
  
  <pre><code>=COUNTIF(Dates!$F:$F,"&gt;"&amp;DATE(1,1,2014))  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>:this obviously doesn't work since I have the date as text in that column</p>
  
  <p>Let's say I converted these dates in another column G using <code>DATEVALUE((LEFT(F5,12))),</code> </p>
  
  <pre><code>=COUNTIF(Dates!$G:$G,"&gt;"&amp;DATE(1,1,2014))  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>:Now this would work</p>
  
  <p>But I want something like (which doesn't work)     </p>
  
  <pre><code>=COUNTIF(DATEVALUE(LEFT(Dates!$F:$F,12)),"&gt;"&amp;DATE(1,1,2014))  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is it possible at all?</p>