copying blank cell

[LA]

COPYING CONTENTS OF A BLANK CELL USING A FUNCTION DOES NOT
RESULT IN A BLANK CELL BUT A CELL WITH A DATE.

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

=if(len(trim(A1))=0,"",A1)

But that only makes the cell look blank - it isn't blank because it contains
a formula. It won't contain a date unless you format it as a date. It would
contain zero if you used

=A1

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

First - using all caps is considered shouting - please don't do that.

If you reference a blank cell, the value returned will be zero (for
numeric functions) or the null string.

A1: =J10

will display 0 if J10 is blank and A1 us formatted as General. Since
dates in XL are just integer offsets from a base date, 0 is
equivalent to 1/0/1900 (or 12/31/1899) in the 1900 system or
1/1/1904 in the 1904 system.

You can trap this condition using

A1: =IF(J10<>"", J10, "")

which returns the null string instead of zero.