How can there be blanks (I'm assuming you mean formula blanks "") if:

A row of 12 cells representing 12 months, all of which have an initial
value of zero.

I'm pretty sure this is overkill for the task at-hand but I just went
through this same scenario with another person:

=IF(COUNTIF(A1:L1,"0"),LOOKUP(2,1/(A1:L10)/(ISNUMBER(A1:L1)),A1:L1),"")

That takes care of *EVERYTHING* :

empty cells
text
0s
formula blanks
errors
booleans
the kitchen sink!

<vbg

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Tyro" wrote in message
. net...
Apparently there are blanks. :)
"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
You formula produces #N/A if all 12 entries are blank.

The first formula would do that but the OP said there were no empty
cells.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Tyro" wrote in message
et...
You formula produces #N/A if all 12 entries are blank. He's referring to
the description of #N/A

"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
"A value is not available to the formula or function".

Hmmm...

I've never seen that error before so I really don't know what it means.

the double quotation marks inside the final parentheses. What do they
mean?

They are used to return a blank *until* a number 0 is entered in the
range. If you want some other result just replace the "" with whatever
you want. Just remember that if you want some TEXT value returned to
enclose the TEXT string in quotes like this:

=IF(COUNTIF(A1:L1,"0"),LOOKUP(2,1/(A1:L10),A1:L1),"no data")

If you want a 0 returned then you don't need the quotes:

=IF(COUNTIF(A1:L1,"0"),LOOKUP(2,1/(A1:L10),A1:L1),0)

I've slightly changed the formula to:

=IF(COUNTIF(A1:L1,"0"),LOOKUP(2,1/(A1:L10),A1:L1),"")

Here's a very small sample file that demonstrates this:

lastnum.xls 14kb

http://cjoint.com/?bghmSfGDPm

Enter some numbers (0) replacing the 0s and you'll see that it works.


--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Ken" wrote in message
...
Thank you all for your responses.

FSt1 Entries in cells will not change

HTH Your formula returns the error "A value is not available to the
formula or function".

Tyro The formula works very well . Thanks. If you have the time, and
inclination, would you post a word description of the formula - I
cannot
follow it entirely.

Biff The three answers are 'no', but your formula returns the same
error
"A value is not available to the formula or function". I tried to
follow it
through but stumbled on the double quotation marks inside the final
parentheses. What do they mean? Should they have something between
them?

Regards, Ken