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Not IS Blank or IS Text formula to mark a symbol

hswayhsway ✭
edited 11/30/21 in Formulas and Functions
11/30/21 Edited 11/30/21
Answered - Pending Review

Use Case:

I would like a cell to change symbols (red for example) based on whether or not a given row has text (any text).

I've tried

=IF(ISTEXT([What should we stop doing?]@row, "Red")))

Returns UNPARSEABLE

I've also tried

=IF(NOT(ISBLANK([What should we stop doing?]@row, "Red")))

Returns INCORRECT ARGUMENT.

Surely there is something I am doing wrong?

Answers

  • Genevieve P.Genevieve P. admin

    Hi @hsway

    Are you looking only for text, or if there is any content at all in the cell? If you're just looking for any content, I would do the following:

    =IF([What should we stop doing?]@row <> "", "Red")

    <> "" says not blank

    If you're specifically looking for a cell that is only text values (versus numerical), then you can use the ISTEXT, like so:

    =IF(ISTEXT([What should we stop doing?]@row), "Red")

    Notice that there is a closing parentheses after the @row ) before the comma and "Red". This is why you were getting an error.

    Keep in mind this will only ever return a Red ball or Blank cell. Do you have other statements you want to return? For example, should it ever be Green or Yellow?

    Cheers,

    Genevieve

  • hswayhsway ✭

    Hey Genevieve,

    Your first suggestion worked out. I did =IF([What should we stop doing?]@row <> "", "Red", ""). Thanks

  • Genevieve P.Genevieve P. admin

    Wonderful! I'm glad I could help.

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