What are null cells

The result of both forms may or may not be the same. The point is, the field-specific form won't consider null values in its count. Otherwise, Jet excludes the row from the results. This behavior is inherent in the equality issue discussed in 3.

Because Null doesn't equal anything, it can't satisfy a condition other than Is Null. For instance, the simple expression. Now, that might be what you want, but it might not. If you want to include null values, include Is Null in the condition as follows:. Instead, Jet sorts null values to the top or the bottom of the result set, depending on the sort order. For instance, the following query includes records where the Region field is Null:.

The result isn't right or wrong, it just might not be what you want. You must explicitly exclude null values. There's no specific method for explicitly excluding null values. The statement's purpose will dictate the solution. A null value is an acceptable value. However, too many null values often point to an unnormalized table. For instance, if you store customer phone and fax numbers, you might end up with a lot of empty fax number fields. Even if you have no null values, your table's still not normalized properly, in this case.

To normalize the phone data, you'd add a table that includes three fields: the foreign key column that relates the phone record to its corresponding customer, the phone number type, and the phone number. The phone number type would identify the phone number as an office, fax, home, cell, and so on.

Then, you'd enter phone number records only when appropriate, eliminating null values. If the customer has no fax, there'd be no record for a fax number. Susan Sales Harkins is an IT consultant, specializing in desktop solutions. Previously, she was editor in chief for The Cobb Group, the world's largest publisher of technical journals.

Editor's Picks. The best programming languages to learn in Check for Log4j vulnerabilities with this simple-to-use script. TasksBoard is the kanban interface for Google Tasks you've been waiting for. Paging Zefram Cochrane: Humans have figured out how to make a warp bubble. Comment and share: 10 tricks for handling null values in Microsoft Access. Show Comments. Null is an error value in a cell when Excel cannot properly evaluate a worksheet formula or function.

This error is shown when you use an incorrect range operator in a formula or when you use an intersection operator. The error value itself plus the Error Option Button, displayed in the error formula, helps identify the problem by showing a small green triangle containing error values.

Start Your Free Excel Course. Excel display some of the Null! Errors which are very common. We will show you the list of those common error values along with some examples.

Refer to the below screenshot. Suppose we need to take the Total Gross Profit of the resources in the below example for 12 resources with their gross profits in column B3 to B Suppose you want to rectify the NULL! Change error display Check the For error values show check box under Format. In the box, type the value that you want to display instead of errors.

To display errors as blank cells, delete any characters in the box. Change empty cell display Check the For empty cells show check box.

In the box, type the value that you want to display in empty cells. To display blank cells, delete any characters in the box. To display zeros, clear the check box. To display zero 0 values in cells, select the Show a zero in cells that have zero value check box. To display zero values as blank cells, clear the Show a zero in cells that have zero value check box. Use a number format to hide zero values in selected cells. Follow this procedure to hide zero values in selected cells.

If the value in one of these cells changes to a nonzero value, the format of the value will be similar to the general number format. The hidden values appear only in the formula bar — or in the cell if you edit within the cell — and are not printed. In the Category list, click General to apply the default number format. To redisplay a date or a time, select the appropriate date or time format on the Number tab.

Use a conditional format to hide zero values returned by a formula. Use a formula to display zeros as blanks or dashes. For more information about how to use this function, see IF function. Change error display Select the For error values, show check box under Format. Change empty cell display Select the For empty cells, show check box. To display hidden values again, select the cells, and then on the Home tab, in the Cells group, point to Format , and click Format Cells. Important: Do not select the row or column headers.

Important: For the example to work properly, you must paste it into cell A1 of the worksheet. After you copy the example to a blank worksheet, you can adapt it to suit your needs. Overview of formulas in Excel. How to avoid broken formulas. Find and correct errors in formulas. Excel keyboard shortcuts and function keys. Excel functions alphabetical.