issue with Blank cell

**garethjohn** · 04-21-2011, 08:14 AM

Hello all
This is my first post here and I am hoping someone could help here, as everyone in my office is stumped!

I have a spreadsheet looking at dates, specifically finish dates for a project.
Within the first worksheet I have a cell where I can enter in a date ie: 01/10/2010.
If the cell is blank, it is highlighted red via conditioanl formatting.

The cell is in question is blank, no value. (lets call is A1)

The 2nd worksheet relates to this by the following formula:

=IF(ISBLANK(VLOOKUP($C$3:$C$212&"Latest",'Milestone Dates'!$N$5:$U$94,8,FALSE)),"",VLOOKUP($C$3:$C$212&"Latest",'Milestone Dates'!$N$5:$U$94,8,FALSE))

This will find the cell above (A1) and thus show blank.

Also note there is another cell (Cell C1) which does have a value (date) in it.

Now comes the problem!

the final worksheet, I have a cell with the following formula:

=IF(ISBLANK(VLOOKUP($B6&"Post Implementation",'Phase Dates'!$A$3:$Q$212,14,FALSE)),VLOOKUP($B6&"Post Implementation",'Phase Dates'!$A$3:$Q$212,11,FALSE),VLOOKUP($B6&"Post Implementation",'Phase Dates'!$A$3:$Q$212,14,FALSE))

The cell shows blank.

What I am trying to do here, is ask excel show a date.
ideally I always want cell A1, but if A1 is blank I want C1 to show.
The above formula shows a blank, whereas it should show C1 date.

The formula I think is fine, if I go to the 1st worksheet and enter in xx, the last worksheet shows xx. But if I delete this xx, nothing is shown. C1 should show tho

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

PS: I am using Excel 2003

**TMS** · 04-21-2011, 08:31 AM

Difficult to tell out of context. Can you post a sample workbook?

Regards

**garethjohn** · 04-21-2011, 08:53 AM

Hi there

In naswer to your query.
obvioulsy I cant upload the entire spreadsheet so here is a rough example of what I am doing.

In worksheet A, this is where I enter in dates

Worksheet B is where data is shown

Worksheet C is where data is shown again, but....
in this worksheet, in D7, this will show what is in (B) E7, but if this is blank it should show F7.
But if we go back to worksheet A, and delete whats in D8, then in C should show the value in F7 (within worksheet B)

sorry if this is confusing!!!

thanks!

**TMS** · 04-21-2011, 09:20 AM

Try:

=IF(VLOOKUP($B7,B!$C$5:$M$212,3,FALSE)="",VLOOKUP($B7,B!$C$5:$Q$212,4,FALSE),VLOOKUP($B7,B!$C$5:$Q$212,3,FALSE))

I don't think the cell is considered blank because it has a formula in it. However, the formula returns a null (blank) which is what I've tested for.

Regards