Check if a Cell Contains Text
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Excel provides an easy method to determine if a particular cell contains text. Using the IsText function will return True or False after checking the given cell. Let’s take a look at at how to use this function.
IsText Example
For this example, let’s imagine Cell A1 has the text “Red”, and Cell B1 contains the number 5. Using the IsText function would look like this:
- =IsText(A1) ; this function would return true because “Red” is text.
- =IsText(B1) ; this function would return false because 5 is a number.
This function can easily be used with other Excel functions to achieve your desired results. In this last example we use the results on the IsText function in an IF statement.
- =IF(IsText(A1),”This Cell Contains Text.”,”This Cell Does not have text.”) ; this function would return “This Cell Contains Text.”
- =IF(IsText(B1),”This Cell Contains Text.”,”This Cell Does not have text.”) ; this function would return “This Cell Does not have Text.”
There are numerous other similar functions built into Excel (such as isNumeric, ISBlank, ISNA and ISERROR) that work similarly to IsText. We will explore those at a later date.
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7 Comments on this post
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karen said:
how to separate full name into last name and first name in excel.
August 24th, 2009 at 5:41 am -
Jim said:
I need to add 8.5 hours to a time entered, and if the cell has text in it I need it to return blank. I have =0.3544+a3 how do I get it to return blank if the referenced cell has text in it. The referenced cell has a drop down list some choices are text. Thanks Jim
May 1st, 2010 at 9:31 pm -
john said:
Did you try the ISText formula?
May 3rd, 2010 at 10:18 am -
Haze said:
I am looking for a formula (?) that will highlight an entire row in colour when a certain cell in the row is populated (either alpha or numerical). Is that possible? Any suggestions would be awesome. Thanks
August 30th, 2011 at 1:41 am -
john said:
Sounds like you want to do some conditional formatting.
August 30th, 2011 at 7:32 pm -
Samantha said:
Goal:
Display “Pending” if any cell in range x contains “P”.Problem:
Cell displays “Pending” even when “P” is not present in range x.Would someone help me locate the error in the following formula:
=IF(ISERROR(SEARCH(“P”,C4:L4)),”Pending”,”Complete”).Note: the only permitted values in range x are P, C, Q and a dash (-). Thanking you in advance!
November 17th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
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