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Oliver Ferns via OfficeKB.com
 
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OK. I think we have a few conceptual issues here...

You wrote..
It seem that everything is designed with the cell containing a formula as

the destination for the results of the formula.

Spot on. It is not possible to change any other cell (value or formatting)
solely by using a formula (built-in or userdefined). A formula only affects
the cell it is in.

You wrote..
I want to populate a different cell based on the results of a formula.

Can't do it, see above. What you want to do is reference Data containing
cells with a cell containing a formula, in order to display the referenced
data, based on a set of arguments (a formula)...

This (imho) is the main principle of a spreadsheet, and answers what is
essentially your question here...and you are almost there. You talk of
cells A1, B1, & C1. You want to check cell B1 for data and populate with C1
if none exists, right? But you cannot have a formula AND data in the same
cell. Excel provides you with 256 columns & 65536 rows, thats 16777216
individual cells on a sheet! So why not have B1 & C1 as Data containers
(whether that "data" exists or not) and use A1 to perform your test &
display your result (a Formula container, if you like)? So A1 contains a
formula that says "If B1 has data, then show the value of B1, and if B1
doesn't have data, show the value of C1" (the formula in A1 would look like
this "=If(B1="",C1,B1"). A1 is now the equivelent of B1 in your example.
Does this help?


Oli

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