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excelisfun - Excel Magic Trick 1155: IF Function: Checking For Empty Cells (5 Methods)

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Community upload. AI output has not been independently verified.
Author: excelisfun
Categories: Science Technology
Tags: science, technology
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-16 00:53 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Use the test ="" inside IF to catch both truly empty cells and zero-length text strings, and use IS BLANK only when you need to catch truly empty cells alone. The video demonstrates five methods of checking for empty cells, including combining two logical tests with OR and using COUNT to handle two-cell checks, which is useful for date-difference formulas that should return nothing when a date is missing.

Key Points

  • A zero-length text string (produced by a formula returning "") looks empty but is not, so a plain empty-cell test can miss it; ="" finds both cases.
  • IS BLANK only detects a truly empty cell, which the video says Excel help calls an "empty cell," even though people often call it "blank."
  • To check two cells at once, wrap two ="" tests in OR so the formula returns nothing if either date is missing.
  • COUNT ignores both empty cells and zero-length text strings, so COUNT(cell1,cell2)<2 is an alternative way to confirm both values are numbers before calculating. The video notes that Excel has no way to place a true empty or null value into a cell, and mentions that Power Pivot's BLANK function returns a null, as a side comment about his own experience using Power Pivot.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions:
    • To catch both empty cells and zero-length strings: =IF(B2="","",ConditionIfNotEmpty); for example, in a column showing "Yes" when a date exists, use =IF(A2="","","Yes").
    • To catch only truly empty cells: =IF(ISBLANK(A2),"","Yes").
    • To check whether a value is a number (dates are serial numbers): =IF(ISNUMBER(A2),"Yes","").
    • To calculate days between two dates while showing nothing if either is missing: =IF(OR(B2="",A2=""),"",B2-A2), filled down.
    • Alternative for the same goal using COUNT: =IF(COUNT(A2:B2)<2,"",B2-A2), filled down.
  • The video stresses that the word "blank" is ambiguous in Excel, so the distinction between empty cells and zero-length strings matters when choosing a test.
  • LEN can confirm the difference: a zero-length string returns 0 and a text value like "Yes" returns 3.

Bottom Line

Choose your empty-cell test based on whether formulas might return "": ="" covers both cases, while ISBLANK only covers truly empty cells.