Thanks to the function ISBLANK Microsoft Excel can find out Yes one cell is in white or not in our spreadsheet. In this simple, but quite detailed article, we are going to see how to use the function in question and get the most out of it.
We cannot deny that the number of useful functions that Microsoft Excel can provide us is truly impressive. From hyperlink functions that allow us to customize them to the maximum and adapt them to any situation; going through the possibility of counting cells with text, adding columns, adding or customizing graphics data labels, etc.
In a few words, we find ourselves with an office automation app full of possibilities, options of all kinds, which are useful in different situations and which has only improved over time.
What is the ISBLANK function in Excel?
One of those possibilities is found with the ISBLANK function in Excel. This allows you to check if the specified cell is blank or not. In case the cell is blank, the function returns a True value. If the cell is not blank, then the value will be False. We can use these values with other Excel functions to perform actions in response to whether cells are blank or not.
The syntax would be the following: =ISBLANK(value)
So “value” refers to the cell we need to check. So if we need to check cell A1, we’ll have to change value to A1.
Excel also provides us with functions for working with blank cells, such as COUNTBLANK which gives us the total count of blank cells in the range we specify. So, if we already know if a cell is blank or not, but we need to know what kind of value it has, we will use the ISNUMBER function to check if the cell contains numbers, we can also use ISTEXT to see if it has a text value.
Use the ISBLANK function to check if a cell is blank
To use this function, we will proceed to open the spreadsheet where we want to work with Excel and click on the cell where we want to display the result of the function.
Once we have the cell selected, we are going to have to write the following function and press Enter. Obviously, in this example we will use “C2”, this we will have to replace with the cell that we want to verify:
=ISBLANK(C2)
If we need to use the function for all the records in the spreadsheet, we go to the bottom right of the cell where we entered the function and drag it down covering all the rows.
How to perform an action depending on whether the cell is blank or not in Excel
We may want to take some action depending on the state of the cell. Maybe we want to display some kind of message that says something when it’s blank and says something else when it’s not.
For this we are going to have to mix the ISBLANK function with another, which would be “If”.
The first thing we will do is open the spreadsheet in Excel. Then we will have to click on the cell where we want to display the result of the function.
With the cell selected, let’s enter to write the function that we will see next and press Enter. Here we are going to have to replace “C2” with the cell that we want to verify if it is blank or not, “Sale not made” with the text that we want to use if the cell is blank and “Sale made” with the text that we will use if it is not blank.
=IF(ISBLANK(C2),”Sale not made”,”Sale made”)
As it happened before, we can use the function for all the records of the spreadsheet, from the lower right corner of the cell where we entered the function in question, we will have to drag down covering all the cells.
