Can a formula ignore empty cells?

I am using Excel in Office 2003. My spreadsheet contains a column (H) of
dates in the following format "2-Feb-06." Another column (J) contains the
formula =H3+10, for example. In other words I want column J to populate with
dates 10 days past the dates entered in column H. In the above example, the
cell J3 contains "12-Feb-06." This is working like a charm exept for
instances in which the cell in column H is blank. When this happens the date
"10-Jan-00" appears in column J because it is adding 10 days to nothing
(empty cell). Is there any way I can utilize this formula to keep a cell in
J blank if the corresponding cell in H is blank? Any help would be greatly
appreciated!

Thanks,
Melissa

Try this:

=IF(H3<>"",H3+10,"")

HTH,
Elkar


"Melissa" wrote:

> I am using Excel in Office 2003. My spreadsheet contains a column (H) of
> dates in the following format "2-Feb-06." Another column (J) contains the
> formula =H3+10, for example. In other words I want column J to populate with
> dates 10 days past the dates entered in column H. In the above example, the
> cell J3 contains "12-Feb-06." This is working like a charm exept for
> instances in which the cell in column H is blank. When this happens the date
> "10-Jan-00" appears in column J because it is adding 10 days to nothing
> (empty cell). Is there any way I can utilize this formula to keep a cell in
> J blank if the corresponding cell in H is blank? Any help would be greatly
> appreciated!
>
> Thanks,
> Melissa