It is often helpful to check if a cell contains an error condition so that your formula can know how to calculate results that may be dependent on that cell. Excel provides the IFERROR function to help determine this information. The purpose of this function is to help simplify how you check for potential errors in your formulas. Consider a rather simple example:
=B8/B9
In most instances this formula will return a good result—unless cell B9 contains a zero value. In that case, Excel returns a #DIV/0! error. The traditional approach to trap this potentiality is to use the ISERROR function in this manner:
=IF(ISERROR(B8/B9),0,B8/B9)
The ISERROR function returns either True or False, depending on whether the expression being evaluated returns an error or not. The surrounding IF function can then act upon the value returned by ISERROR to determine what should be displayed.
The problem with this approach is that it is rather convoluted. Note, for instance, that your evaluation (B8/B9) needs to be included twice in the full formula. While that may not seem problematic with such a simple evaluation, with longer formulas it can be a real pain—at a minimum it makes your overall formula twice as long as it should be and provides two formulas that need to be kept in sync when you make changes.
This is where the IFERROR function comes into play. It helps simplify the formulas you create. The following is the equivalent of the traditional formula presented earlier:
=IFERROR(B8/B9,0)
In this instance, the formula B8/B9 is evaluated and, if it results in an error, the 0 value is returned. If there is no error, then the value of the formula being evaluated is instead returned.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (7800) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013.
Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!
Need to pull just a limited amount of information from a large list? Here are a few approaches you might be able to use with ...
Discover MoreDo you need your numbers to be rounded to an even integer value? How you accomplish the task depends on the nature of the ...
Discover MoreGot a list of data from which you want to delete duplicates? There are a couple of techniques you can use to get rid of the ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)
Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2017 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments