cell formatting. a zero in the column

I have a userform where when an item is clicked it is placed in the active cell on the current sheet. I then have it so that 3 sheets in the workbook take the value from the active form. On one of these forms there is a long list of zero's in the blank fields, that i don't want to be there. the formulae i am using is =sheet1!the required cell number. so the formulae in b1 would be =sheet1!b1, b2 would be =sheet1!b2 etc.

what i would like to know is how do i stop the cells from showing a zero when the cell it is looking at is null, so that they are empty. the cell format is general, i changed it to text but it still kept the zero.

any help will be great
cheers in advance

steve