ISBLANK problem

[banjoflanjo]

Hi all,

I'm having a problem with an isblank formula which I'm hoping someone can help me with.

I have the following formula in cell A1 =""

I have the following formula in cell A3 =ISBLANK(A2)

Now, if I copy cell A1 and paste values into cell A2, the A2 cell is completely blank yet the formula result in cell A3 = FALSE.

Does anyone know what the formula is picking up or can tell me why its doing this????

Thank you in advance!!!

Banjoflanjo

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

ISBLANK doesn't return TRUE for cells containing null. You could try:

=LEN(A1)=0

 

[banjoflanjo]

Hi,

To be honest I've already used the len function in place of the ISBLANK formula, but I'd still like to understand why the ISBLANK formula doesnt work properly.

What exactly do you mean by "ISBLANK doesn't return TRUE for cells containing null"? When you paste values the cell is blank, there are no values or formulae or spaces or anything in there so I don't understand what the ISBLANK formula is picking up in the cell.

Banjoflanjo

 

[Peter_SSs]

Your cells A1 and A2 are not blank, they contain a text string that happens to be 0 characters long. To try to demonstrate, with A1 and A2 as you describe, in cell B1 put =ISTEXT(A1) and copy down to B2. Both results should return TRUE. Now select A2 and hit the Delete key. Cell B2 should now return FALSE, because the null text string has been removed.

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

ISBLANK returns TRUE for empty cells. A cell containing null is not empty, it contains a zero length string. Both ISBLANK and COUNTA treat cells containing null as non-empty cells. Strangely COUNTBLANK does not.

 

[banjoflanjo]

Thanks for your help guys, it is much appreciated. I need to make sure that I'm getting standard results, so given the differences between how the COUNTBLANK & ISBLANK functions operate I've decided on a different solution.

As you probably guessed the scenario that I posted was simplified in order to more easily simulate my problem. I'm using a routine which calculates cell values via an if statement where one of the possible results is "". "" is what I use in my if statements to give a blank cell as a result. However, instead of using "" I'm going to give a named range to a fixed reference blank cell. Then instead of my macro calculating "" as a possible result, I'll get it to copy my named range blank cell and paste it in the desired cell before moving on to the next cell.

Once again, thanks for the help guys!!

Banjoflanjo