Overview

Custom Count & Sum Guides

Walkthroughs for the counting and summing questions Google Sheets has no built-in answer for — by cell colour, by font style, across sheets. Each one covers the manual route as well as the add-on.

Each guide shows the manual approach first, then a short Apps Script version, then how Custom Count & Sum does the same thing in one formula that recalculates on its own.

Count or sum cells by color in Google Sheets

Three ways to count coloured cells — the built-in filter trick, a custom function you paste yourself, and the add-on functions COUNTBACKGROUNDCOLOR / SUMBACKGROUNDCOLOR. Includes when each one breaks.

Count or sum bold, italic & strikethrough cells

Google Sheets can’t filter by font style at all. The manual tag-and-filter workaround, an Apps Script function using getFontWeights, and the add-on’s COUNTSTYLE / SUMSTYLE / ISFONTSTYLE.

Sum or count across every sheet in a workbook

Google Sheets has no 3D reference. The hand-written sheet list, an Apps Script loop over getSheets(), and the add-on’s SUMALLSHEETS / COUNTALLSHEETS — plus the tab-name gotcha that trips everyone up.

Count cells by conditional formatting colour

Why no formula, script or add-on can read a conditional-format colour, and the two approaches that do work: count by the rule’s own condition, or convert the highlight into a real fill.