try max(a1,b1)
a1=3
b1 is blank

been dribled2

"Frank Winston" wrote:

I have a cell formula that returns either a number or "" (blank). This works
fine but when I try to compare the result with another number to see which is
greater, I'm having trouble figuring out how Excel treats the result. If the
formula returned a number (say 2.0) and the other cell contained say 3.0,
then Excel can correctly recognise that 32. However, if the result was "",
then it says that ""3. I don't know why this is. You would think that ""
would be treated as zero which would be less than 3, not greater than.