=IF(ISBLANK(sheet1!A1),"",sheet1!A1)

Of course, as text, it will not be the same value as an original cell that is
actually empty. So a formula like =G6+H6 might fail with a #VALUE!
error, but =SUM(G6:H6) would work fine.
---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

"kbgrunt" wrote ...
I am attempting to link a few Excel files to a worksheet in a separate file
that contains my master data. The link works, but, empty cells in the range
selected now contain a zero, in the target files. How do I prevent cells
from being zero filled? I have set columns to TEXT. Excel 2000.

Thanks