COUNTBLANK function

[Ian P]

I posted a question the other day about the COUNTBLANK function because when
I used it to count the blank cells returned by the formula =IF(a1="","",a1)
it didn't work unless I deleted the contents of a1 twice.

I have now tried this on my home PC running Excel97 and I get exactly the
same fault as I do at work running Excel2000. Interestingly depending on the
order in which I set up the spreadsheet (either entering the formula first or
entering the A1 first) I can get the fault to occur on not. So I have
reached the conclusion that there is a fault with this functionality. Bob
Phillips mentioned that COUNTBLANK can't be used to count formulas returning
"" so is this a change in a later version of Excel?

Ian

 

[Gary''s Student]

COUNTBLANK() should count formulae returning blanks as well. See:


http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP052090281033.aspx

 

[David Biddulph]

COUNTBLANK() should count formulae returning blanks as well. See:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP052090281033.aspx

http://exceltips.vitalnews.com/Pages/T0809_Returning_a_Blank_Value.html and
http://exceltips.vitalnews.com/Pages/T1073_Counting_Non-Blank_Cells.html
suggest that this hasn't changed between 97, 2000, & 2003.

 

[Ragdyer]

I'm on an XL97 machine today and the Countblank() function *does* count zero
length strings (""), which are returned by formulas.

 

[Biff]

Just to add to what's already been posted:

From Excel help:

COUNTBLANK
Counts empty cells in a specified range of cells.
Cells with formulas that return "" (empty text) are also counted.

ISBLANK
The ISBLANK function returns the logical value TRUE if value is a reference
to an empty cell; otherwise it returns FALSE.

A1 = =""

=COUNTBLANK(A1) = 1
=ISBLANK(A1) = FALSE

The should have named ISBLANK ISEMPTY

Biff