What does "" mean in Excel?

  • Thread starter Thread starter nstrain27
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nstrain27

I am having trouble wording my formula correctly. What does "" mean in a formula? Keep in mind there is no space in betweem the quotation marks.
 
What does "" mean in a formula? Keep in mind there is no space in
betweem the quotation marks.
Click to expand...

It's a text string, zero characters long.

Think of what you get starting with "a" and deleting the first (and only) letter.
 
I am having trouble wording my formula correctly.
What does "" mean in a formula? Keep in mind there
is no space in betweem the quotation marks.
Click to expand...

It is called the null string, a string of zero characters. It is useful for
making a cell look blank, particularly under some conditions.

It is important to note that a cell with the value of the null string does
not behave the same in some contexts as an empty cell.

For example, if A1 has the formula =IF(B1<=0,"",B1) and A2 has the formula
=A1+B2, A2 returns a #VALUE error because we trying to add non-numeric text
to B2 (if B1<=0).

Some ways to correct that:

=IF(A1="",B2,A1+B2)

=N(A1)+B2

Both treat A1 with the null string value the same as empty A1, namely zero.
 
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