IF Cell is Blank (Empty) using IF + ISBLANK (Formula in Excel)

Last Updated: March 24, 2024
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- Written by Puneet

In Excel, if you want to check if a cell is blank or not, you can use a combination formula of IF and ISBLANK. These two formulas work in a way where ISBLANK checks for the cell value and then IF returns a meaningful full message (specified by you) in return.

In the following example, you have a list of numbers where you have a few cells blank.

list-with-some-blank-cells

Formula to Check IF a Cell is Blank or Not (Empty)

  1. First, in cell B1, enter IF in the cell.
  2. Now, in the first argument, enter the ISBLANK and refer to cell A1 and enter the closing parentheses.
  3. Next, in the second argument, use the “Blank” value.
  4. After that, in the third argument, use “Non-Blank”.
  5. In the end, close the function, hit enter, and drag the formula up to the last value that you have in the list.
if-formula-to-find-blank

As you can see, we have the value “Blank” for the cell where the cell is empty in column A.

=IF(ISBLANK(A1),"Blank","Non-Blank")

Now let’s understand this formula. In the first part where we have the ISBLANK which checks if the cells are blank or not.

isblank-function

And, after that, if the value returned by the ISBLANK is TRUE, IF will return “Blank”, and if the value returned by the ISBLANK is FALSE IF will return “Non_Blank”.

isblank-resulted-value

Alternate Formula

You can also use an alternate formula where you just need to use the IF function.

Now in the function, you just need to specify the cell where you want to test the condition and then use an equal operator with the blank value to create a condition to test. And you just need to specify two values that you want to get the condition TRUE or FALSE.

if-formula-with-blank-and-non-blank

Get the Excel File

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