I'm using the following formula in cell c1:
=if(isblank(a1),"",a1)
to "copy" the a1 cell value to cell c1 without displaying a zero if a1 is
blank.

The trouble I'm having is if cell a1 is blank, thus making the value of c1 =
""....
=isblank(c1) returns false (the cell is not blank), but...
=countblank(c1) returns 1 (the cell is blank)

Why does CountBlank consider a cell with the value of "" as blank, but
IsBlank does not??

I found this apparent discrepany in results because I actually want to use
CountA(c1:c4) to count non-blank cells, but it's count cells with a value of
"" as a non-blank cell.

I know I can "work around" this by using 4-countblank(c1:c4) to find the
number of non-blank cells, but I like the direct route better.

Is there a better way to copy a blank value from a1 to c1??