Excel formula null

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Possible Duplicate: Return empty cell from formula in Excel. As you've indicated, you can't output NULL in an excel formula. I think this has to do with the fact that the formula itself causes the cell to not be able to be NULL. Based on your comment, you might want to check out this link.

It goes in depth on the graphing issues and what the various values represent, and how to manipulate their output on a chart. So I won't be much help there. But if you are really placing formulas in the cell, then there really is no way. But that would be cumbersome and performance would take a hit. I've been frustrated by this problem as well. Article by Jeevan A Y. Select cell A2 as the argument. Since there is only one argument close the bracket We got the result as given below: Drag-drop the formula to other remaining cells.

We got the results but look at the cell B7, even though there is no value in the cell A7 still formula returned the result as a False, i. It calculates the number of characters in a given string as input. It counts the no. LEN function returned the no. So, there should be a character in it.

This is done by the double quotation marks. The rest of the formula is the as before: With the second argument you define that—if the value from the original formula is blank—the return value is empty too. If not, the last argument defines that you return the desired non-blank value. To save some time, we have included a feature for showing blank cells instead of zeros in our Excel add-in Professor Excel Tools.

Thanks, Dom! Great to get such awesome feedback from you! But: There is a downside. This might cause problems in further calculations if a zero is returned. Let me give you an example:. Careful: Return value is interpretated as text. If your return value is 0, the cell will be shown as an empty string. Further calculations might be difficult: For example, if you want to add a number to the return value.

Bottom line: This is an elegant approach, but please test it well if it suits to your Excel model. Image by Pexels from Pixabay. Henrik Schiffner is a freelance business consultant and software developer.

He lives and works in Hamburg, Germany. Besides being an Excel enthusiast he loves photography and sports. I have text in column A which is one of 4 options. In a related row I have times. I want a function to find the longest time in each text option.

An example would be:. Options 2 and 3 are seriously ugly solutions. By far the most elegant approach is to concatenate a null string to the lookup result, thus forcing the result to a string:. Kudos to you sir! If the value in your original formula is blank, the original formula would without the if-formula according to number 3 return 0. Using option 3 changes it to blank again. If you leave B1 blank, A1 would show 0. Forgot Password? This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the cookie policy.

By closing this banner, scrolling this page, clicking a link or continuing to browse otherwise, you agree to our Privacy Policy. Popular Course in this category. Course Price View Course. Note: Null! Note: NULL!