skip blanks

I am doing a vlookup where i throwing in a "" if there is an error, what im
trying to do is do a past special and skip blanks but all the values get over
written . excel must be treating the cell as not blank. even after i paste
sepcial values in same row im doing vlookupo and then try it . it still
wants to over write cells where no match was found ... any ideas

Because the cell has a formula it will NEVER be seen by Excel as a blank.

There is probably a way to accomplish what you want, but you'll need to
provide more info if we are to help you

"Robin Krupp" wrote:

> I am doing a vlookup where i throwing in a "" if there is an error, what im
> trying to do is do a past special and skip blanks but all the values get over
> written . excel must be treating the cell as not blank. even after i paste
> sepcial values in same row im doing vlookupo and then try it . it still
> wants to over write cells where no match was found ... any ideas

"Blank" doesn't mean: Looks blank.
It means: Contains no value whatsoever.

See if this helps:
Clear the contents of A1, then
B1: =ISBLANK(A1)

Now, put an apostrophe in A1
Next, put "" in A1

Post back if you still have questions
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP-Pro


"Robin Krupp" wrote:

> I am doing a vlookup where i throwing in a "" if there is an error, what im
> trying to do is do a past special and skip blanks but all the values get over
> written . excel must be treating the cell as not blank. even after i paste
> sepcial values in same row im doing vlookupo and then try it . it still
> wants to over write cells where no match was found ... any ideas

Im actually using a =if(iserror(vlookup(stufF)),"",vlookup(stuff)) after
unsucessfully getting the past special skip blanks to work, i took the
values and pasted them over the formula so the formula didnt exist any more
if i test the cell for isblank it returns 0

what i have is a column of number lets say inventory numbers , im looking on
a secondary table to get any updates, i want to then grab updates and past
them just where there was anupdate and leave old values intact




"Ron Coderre" wrote:

> "Blank" doesn't mean: Looks blank.
> It means: Contains no value whatsoever.
>
> See if this helps:
> Clear the contents of A1, then
> B1: =ISBLANK(A1)
>
> Now, put an apostrophe in A1
> Next, put "" in A1
>
> Post back if you still have questions
> ***********
> Regards,
> Ron
>
> XL2002, WinXP-Pro
>
>
> "Robin Krupp" wrote:
>
> > I am doing a vlookup where i throwing in a "" if there is an error, what im
> > trying to do is do a past special and skip blanks but all the values get over
> > written . excel must be treating the cell as not blank. even after i paste
> > sepcial values in same row im doing vlookupo and then try it . it still
> > wants to over write cells where no match was found ... any ideas

Your statement of the issue still isn't very clear, but if you are trying to
update a table then you ought to
1) create a new table that will be a combination of the original and the
updated data
2) use a VLOOKUP that uses the new data if it's there and the old data when
there's no update, something like:

=if(iserror(vlookup(Inventory#,NewData,x,0)),vlookup(Inventory#,OldData,x,0),vlookup(Inventory#,NewData,x,0))

"Robin Krupp" wrote:

> Im actually using a =if(iserror(vlookup(stufF)),"",vlookup(stuff)) after
> unsucessfully getting the past special skip blanks to work, i took the
> values and pasted them over the formula so the formula didnt exist any more
> if i test the cell for isblank it returns 0
>
> what i have is a column of number lets say inventory numbers , im looking on
> a secondary table to get any updates, i want to then grab updates and past
> them just where there was anupdate and leave old values intact
>
>
>
>
> "Ron Coderre" wrote:
>
> > "Blank" doesn't mean: Looks blank.
> > It means: Contains no value whatsoever.
> >
> > See if this helps:
> > Clear the contents of A1, then
> > B1: =ISBLANK(A1)
> >
> > Now, put an apostrophe in A1
> > Next, put "" in A1
> >
> > Post back if you still have questions
> > ***********
> > Regards,
> > Ron
> >
> > XL2002, WinXP-Pro
> >
> >
> > "Robin Krupp" wrote:
> >
> > > I am doing a vlookup where i throwing in a "" if there is an error, what im
> > > trying to do is do a past special and skip blanks but all the values get over
> > > written . excel must be treating the cell as not blank. even after i paste
> > > sepcial values in same row im doing vlookupo and then try it . it still
> > > wants to over write cells where no match was found ... any ideas

ron,

So what is the equivilent of blank

"Ron Coderre" wrote:

> "Blank" doesn't mean: Looks blank.
> It means: Contains no value whatsoever.
>
> See if this helps:
> Clear the contents of A1, then
> B1: =ISBLANK(A1)
>
> Now, put an apostrophe in A1
> Next, put "" in A1
>
> Post back if you still have questions
> ***********
> Regards,
> Ron
>
> XL2002, WinXP-Pro
>
>
> "Robin Krupp" wrote:
>
> > I am doing a vlookup where i throwing in a "" if there is an error, what im
> > trying to do is do a past special and skip blanks but all the values get over
> > written . excel must be treating the cell as not blank. even after i paste
> > sepcial values in same row im doing vlookupo and then try it . it still
> > wants to over write cells where no match was found ... any ideas

There is no formulaic equivalent of Blank. There are, however, sevarak
workarounds you might be able to use. Duke suggested one. Here's another.

For instance, perhaps your formulas could return "EraseMe", instead of "".
Then you could:
Copy/paste values that column to a new column.
Find/Replace "EraseMe" with nothing.
Then Skip Blanks would work.

Does that help?

***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP-Pro


"Robin Krupp" wrote:

> ron,
>
> So what is the equivilent of blank
>
> "Ron Coderre" wrote:
>
> > "Blank" doesn't mean: Looks blank.
> > It means: Contains no value whatsoever.
> >
> > See if this helps:
> > Clear the contents of A1, then
> > B1: =ISBLANK(A1)
> >
> > Now, put an apostrophe in A1
> > Next, put "" in A1
> >
> > Post back if you still have questions
> > ***********
> > Regards,
> > Ron
> >
> > XL2002, WinXP-Pro
> >
> >
> > "Robin Krupp" wrote:
> >
> > > I am doing a vlookup where i throwing in a "" if there is an error, what im
> > > trying to do is do a past special and skip blanks but all the values get over
> > > written . excel must be treating the cell as not blank. even after i paste
> > > sepcial values in same row im doing vlookupo and then try it . it still
> > > wants to over write cells where no match was found ... any ideas