If you've tried to make formulas in Google Sheets using the ISBLANK()
function, you probably have noticed its wildly unintuitive behavior: it does not consider ""
as blank. No, that's not two visible quotation marks – that's the presence of the string delimiter. So cells with the contents (omitting the initial "
used to display the formulas)
![](https://stderr.brandonistenes.com/content/images/2019/07/Screenshot-from-2019-07-05-00-27-47.png)
resolve to
![](https://stderr.brandonistenes.com/content/images/2019/07/Screenshot-from-2019-07-05-00-29-28.png)
Despite this somehow charmingly condescending attempt to explain, you're correct in identifying this behavior as wrong. It's the wrong thing to do; it's bad design.
To mitigate this problem, use EQ(LEN(A1), 0)
, which does what you expect.