what does "" mean in excell

G

Gord Dibben

In the context of a formula like =IF(A1="","",A1)

It means if A1 is empty or blank then return a blank.

A1 may not necessarily be empty.

It could have a formula which evaluates to "" so the above formula would see
that as blank.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
 
D

Dave Peterson

It's an empty string.

It makes the cell look blank/empty--but it's not. It contains a formula.

Lots of people (too many!!) use:

=if(a1>7,"Too many"," ")
with the extra space character.

But this can cause trouble in cells that check the value in that cell.

=if(b1="","looks blank","doesn't look blank")

If b1 contained " ", then this formula would return the "doesn't look blank"
string.
 

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