Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 9, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021
Robert would like a macro that finds all instances of cells in a data table that have a zero value and, then, deletes those cells. He wonders how to go about doing this.
For the purposes of this tip, I'm going to assume that Robert actually wants to clear the values in the cells, not actually delete the cells. Further, I'm going to assume that he doesn't want to just hide zero values, as can be easily done with a simple setting change in Excel. (How you do this has been covered in other ExcelTips.)
There are actually a few ways you can go about getting rid of your zero values. One way doesn't even use macros, but instead relies upon the Find and Replace capabilities of Excel:
Figure 1. The expanded Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
You could even, if desired, translate the above steps into a short little macro:
Sub ReplaceZeros() Cells.Replace What:="0", Replacement:="", _ LookAt:=xlWhole, SearchOrder:=xlByRows End Sub
There is a limit to what this approach will accomplish, most notably it will only replace cells that actually contain a 0 value. It will not replace formulas that resolve to 0. For instance, if a cell contained the fomula =4-4, which resolves to 0, the Find and Replace operation ignores it because there is not actually a 0 value in the cell.
If you want something that will actually clear cells that either contain 0 or resolve to 0, then you'll need a different macro approach. Here's a good one:
Sub DeleteZeroes() Dim rCell As Range For Each rCell In Selection If rCell.Value = 0 Then rCell.ClearContents End If Next End Sub
To use the macro, simply select the cells you want to affect and then run the macro. It looks through each of the selected cells and removes the contents of any cell that contains a 0 value—and in this case that also includes any formulas that resolve to 0.
Note:
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2022-04-10 10:05:42
J. Woolley
For Excel's option to hide zero values see the following:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/Search/results?query=Display+or+hide+zero+values
The option is toggled ON/OFF by the worksheet’s Window property DisplayZeros. For the active worksheet, the following VBA statement will toggle it:
ActiveWindow.DisplayZeros = Not ActiveWindow.DisplayZeros
To hide zero values for all worksheets in the active workbook:
Dim WS as Worksheet
For Each WS In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
WS.Activate
ActiveWindow.DisplayZeros = False
Next WS
My Excel Toolbox includes the WindowDressing macro, which will toggle several such properties for the active worksheet or all worksheets. A screenshot is included in my recent comment added to the following Tip:
https://excelribbon.tips.net/T009308_Controlling_Where_You_Edit_Cell_Contents.html
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