Return a value of '1' a referenced cell is empty

Question

In Excel, I need to return a value of 1 if a referenced cell is empty

I can do it if the value is zero but how do I do it if it is empty?

Answer 1

You may have to use =IF(ISNUMBER(A1),A1,1) in some situations where you are looking for number values in cell.

Answer 2

P4 is the cell I test for:

=IF(ISBLANK(P4),1,0)

Answer 3

=if(a1="","1","0")

In this formula if the cell is empty then the result would be 1 else it would be 0

Answer 4

Paxdiablo's answer is absolutely correct.

To avoid writing the return value 1 twice, I would use this instead:

=IF(OR(ISBLANK(A1),TRIM(A1)=""),1,0)

Answer 5

Since required quite often it might as well be brief:

=1*(A1="")

This will not return 1 if the cell appears empty but contains say a space or a formula of the kind =IF(B1=3,"Yes","") where B1 does not contain 3.

=A1="" will return either TRUE or FALSE but those in an equation are treated as 1 and 0 respectively so multiplying TRUE by 1 returns 1.

Much the same can be achieved with the double unary --:

=--(A1="")  

where when A1 is empty one minus negates TRUE into -1 and the other negates that to 1 (just + in place of -- however does not change TRUE to 1).

Answer 6

If you've got a cell filled with spaces or blanks, you can use:

=Len(Trim(A2)) = 0

if the cell you were testing was A2