/text/scalc/05/empty_cells.xhp empty cells;handling of i86303Handling of Empty Cells Starting with OpenOffice.org 3.0 and StarOffice 9, the handling of empty cells got changed. Previously, empty cells were forced to numeric 0 in some contexts and to empty string in others, except in direct comparison where =A1=0 and =A1="" both resulted in TRUE if A1 was empty. Emptiness now is inherited until used, so both =VLOOKUP(...)=0 and =VLOOKUP(...)="" give TRUE if the lookup resulted in an empty cell being returned. A simple reference to an empty cell is still displayed as numeric 0 but is not necessarily of type numeric anymore, so also comparisons with the referencing cell work as expected. For the following examples, A1 contains a number, B1 is empty, C1 contains the reference to B1: A1: 1 B1: <empty> C1: =B1 (displays 0) =B1=0 => TRUE =B1="" => TRUE =C1=0 => TRUE =C1="" => TRUE (previously was FALSE) =ISNUMBER(B1) => FALSE =ISNUMBER(C1) => FALSE (previously was TRUE) =ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) => FALSE (B1) =ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) => FALSE (C1, previously was TRUE) =ISTEXT(B1) => FALSE =ISTEXT(C1) => FALSE =ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) => FALSE (B1, previously was TRUE) =ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) => FALSE (C1) =ISBLANK(B1) => TRUE =ISBLANK(C1) => FALSE =ISBLANK(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) => TRUE (B1, previously was FALSE) =ISBLANK(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) => FALSE (C1) Note that Microsoft Excel behaves different and always returns a number as the result of a reference to an empty cell or a formula cell with the result of an empty cell. For example: A1: <empty> B1: =A1 => displays 0, but is just a reference to an empty cell =ISNUMBER(A1) => FALSE =ISTEXT(A1) => FALSE =A1=0 => TRUE =A1="" => TRUE =ISNUMBER(B1) => FALSE (MS-Excel: TRUE) =ISTEXT(B1) => FALSE =B1=0 => TRUE =B1="" => TRUE (MS-Excel: FALSE) C1: =VLOOKUP(...) with empty cell result => displays empty (MS-Excel: displays 0) =ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(...)) => FALSE =ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(...)) => FALSE =ISNUMBER(C1) => FALSE (MS-Excel: TRUE) =ISTEXT(C1) => FALSE