"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message
...
: On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 12:02:26 -0500, "Spike9458"
: wrote:
:
: Hi all,
:
: I am working on a spreadsheet that is a little over 10000 lines long.
: Several columns seem to not have any data, but I am reluctant to just
delete
: them. What sort of function can I used to see if there is any data in a
: given column that will just return the result of true or false, text
present
: or not present?
:
: Thank-you for your help.
:
: --Jim
:
:
: Do you just want to know if text is present? (as you wrote) or do you
really
: want to know if the column contains only empty cells?
:
: You could use the array formulas for this:
:
: =AND(ISBLANK(G1:G5535))
:
: to test column G. This will return FALSE if there are any entries in that
: column, including formulas that return null strings, the various
white-space
: characters, and so forth. Otherwise it will return TRUE.
:
: If you are looking for just text, you could use the array-formula:
:
: =OR(ISTEXT(G1:G65535))
:
: which will return TRUE if there is text (null strings and white-space
count as
: text), and false otherwise.
:
: To enter an array-formula, after typing it into the formula bar, hold down
: <ctrl<shift while hitting <enter. Excel will place braces {...} around
the
: formula
: --ron

Hi Ron,

Thanks for giving me those options. For now just need to know if the
columns were blank or not so I could delete them. It is for an email and
mailing address database.

Here's a twist for you. I'm combining two lists. One has email addresses,
one has snailmail addresses. I wish to combine the two for one database, and
will need to be able to sort out and delete the duplicates once I have the
email and snailmail addresses associated with each person correctly. I am
working with about 10500 line items, and when done will have a little over
6500.

Thanks for anything else you can help me with.

--Jim