Hide formula errors in Excel

Excel 365
If you use formulas in Excel, you often can see messages such as #VALUE! or #DIV/0!. Most of the time, this means you need to check the source of the error and fix it, but sometimes a formula error simply means that the data used by the formula is not yet available.

For example, if you have a spreadsheet where you track monthly sales as a percentage:

Example of spreadsheet with errors in Excel 2016

The formulas in column E do the calculations of percentages. For example, cell E3 contains the formula:

= (D3 - C3) / C3.

The formula in E4 was simply copied down the column to handle the other data.

The formula is correct for all cells, but in E10:E14, it is displayed the #DIV/0! error message, because of empty cells in C10:C14.

You can avoid displaying formula errors by changing the formula to use an IF and an ISERROR function:

= IF (ISERROR (<formula>), "", <formula>)

To display a blank if this formula returns an error. In this example:

= IF (ISERROR ((D3 - C3) / C3), "", (D3 - C3) / C3):

Example of spreadsheet without errors in Excel 2016

If you prefer, you can replace the empty string ("") with zero or other text of your choice, just make sure the text is enclosed in quote marks. For example:

Example of spreadsheet with formula in Excel 2016

See also this tip in French: Masquer les erreurs de formule dans Excel.

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