ISBLANK query...

M

Mat

Greetings

....for example, I am trying to get cell A1 to return a particular value if
cell A3 is blank using the ISBLANK formula in A1
=IF(ISBLANK(A3),"blank","full")

However, cell A3 in turn is linked to another IF statement, returning a
value of " " if a condition is true to blank the cell out. This seems to
have the effect that Excel determines the cell as not being blank, and
therefore the initial ISBLANK returns a false.

Any ideas? Essentially I am asking how to make Excel see a cell as blank,
I've always used " " to display a blank entry in a cell.

Thanks.
 
P

Peo Sjoblom

How would that work if the OP as stated use spaces?
My suggestion is to change the rather stupid behavior of putting
spaces in cells that are supposed to be "blank". So the formulas that
produce these "blanks" should use "" instead of " " that way
your formula will work
 
D

Dave Peterson

How about:

=if(trim(a3)="","blank","full")


Greetings

...for example, I am trying to get cell A1 to return a particular value if
cell A3 is blank using the ISBLANK formula in A1
=IF(ISBLANK(A3),"blank","full")

However, cell A3 in turn is linked to another IF statement, returning a
value of " " if a condition is true to blank the cell out. This seems to
have the effect that Excel determines the cell as not being blank, and
therefore the initial ISBLANK returns a false.

Any ideas? Essentially I am asking how to make Excel see a cell as blank,
I've always used " " to display a blank entry in a cell.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
D

Dave Hawley

Using "" or " " is generally bad spreadsheet design. I usually opt to
return 0 (zero) as this is more 'formula friendly.

Zero's can of course be hidden in a multitude of ways.

Tools>Options
Custom Format
Con Format
etc

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