If the return cell in an Excel formula is empty, Excel by default returns 0 instead. For example cell A1 is blank and linked to by another cell. But what if you want to show the exact return value – for empty cells as well as 0 as return values? This article introduces three different options for dealing with empty return values.

Option 1: Don’t display zero values

Hide zero numbers in Excel within the worksheet settings

Probably the easiest option is to just not display 0 values. You could differentiate if you want to hide all zeroes from the entire worksheet or just from selected cells.

There are three methods of hiding zero values.

1. Hide zero values with conditional formatting rules.
2. Blind out zeros with a custom number format.
3. Hide zero values within the worksheet settings.

For details about all three methods of just hiding zeroes, please refer to this article.

Option 2: Change zeroes to blank cells

Unlike the first option, the second option changes the output value. No matter if the return value is 0 (zero) or originally a blank cell, the output of the formula is an empty cell. You can achieve this using the IF formula.

Structure of the IF formula for changing zeroes to empty values.

Say, your lookup formula looks like this: =VLOOKUP(A3,C:D,2,FALSE)  (hereafter referred to by “original formula”). You want to prevent getting a zero even if the return value―found by the VLOOKUP formula in column D―is an empty value. This can be achieved using the IF formula.

The structure of such IF formula is shown in the image above (if you need assistance with the IF formula, please refer to this article). The original formula is wrapped within the IF formula. The first argument compares if the original formula returns 0. If yes―and that’s the task of the second argument―the formula returns nothing through the double quotation marks. If the orgininal formula within the first argument doesn’t return zero, the last argument returns the real value. This is achieved by the original formula again.

The complete formula looks like this.

Option 3: Show zeroes but don’t show empty return values

Structure of the IF formula for returning an empty cell if the return value is also an empty cell.

The previous option two didn’t differentiate between 0 and empty cells in the return cell. If you only want to show empty cells if the return cell found by your lookup formula is empty (and not if the return value really is 0) then you have to slightly alter the formula from option 2 before.

Like before, the IF formula is wrapped around the original formula. But instead of testing if the return value is 0, it tests within the first argument if the return value is blank. This is done by the double quotation marks. The rest of the formula is the as before: With the second argument you define that—if the value from the original formula is blank—the return value is empty too. If not, the last argument defines that you return the desired non-blank value.

The formula in your example from option 2 looks like this.