I'm having a problem inserting a blank in a cell using a function so that
another formula that refers to this blank reads it as a blank.

For example, if A1 is a blank cell:

Formula Result

=ISBLANK(A1) TRUE
=IF(ISBLANK(A1)," ",1)
=ISBLANK(A3) FALSE

In the above example, even though =IF(ISBLANK(A1)," ",1) shows a blank cell
in A3, a reference to it in another formula shows that Excel does not think
it is blank.

How do you write a formula so that there is truly nothing in the cell as a
result?