The effect of showing “Closed” in light gray is accomplished with a conditional formatting rule.

Display nothing if cell is blank

To display nothing if a cell is blank, you can replace the “value if false” argument in the IF function with an empty string ("") like this:

Alternative with ISBLANK

Excel contains a function made to test for blank cells called ISBLANK. To use the ISBLANK, you can revise the formula as follows:

Dave Bruns

Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.