Date Formatting

[ErnieF]

I have a series of cells with a vlookup formula which either returns a date (if the lookup table has a date) or a blank. This works fine. I am trying to pick up the value of that cell and return a code letter in another cell which will either be "Y" or "N" if the cell is blank or has a date in  it. The cell is formatted as a standard date field.

I have tried ISBLANK, looked at the LEN of the cell but am having problems solving this issue. Any help gratefully received.

Regards

ErnieF

[#2]

Hi,

ISBLANK works only with the completely blank cells.

If the blank is returned by a formula, then you have to check whether the cell is blank or not using this formula:

=IF(A1="","Y","N")

Hope that helps

[#3]

Thanks Haytham, but I am afraid it does not work. Although the cell appears to be blank, If I ask for the LEN(cell ref) I get "01/01/1900". I have tried using that in the formula, but that does not work either.

The lookup formula works perfectly to either display a date or a blank cell, but I need to identify if it is displaying a date then another cell gets to show a code letter.

Regards

Ernie

[#4]

Hi Ernie,

I can't figure out what exactly you're trying to do!

I understood that you have a date column contains dates and some blank cells, all returned by VLOOKUP.

And you want in another column to check whether the cell is blank or not.

So I have suggested this formula:

=IF(A1="","Y","N")

I don't know why you use the LEN function?

If can provide a sample worksheet attached here, that's would be better to figure out what is the problem.

[#5]

As a comment, it looks like misprint is here

LEN(cell ref) I get "01/01/1900"

it shall be "00/01/1900" (if dd/mm/yyyy format), other words LEN(cell ref) returns 0.