Using IS functions in Excel

Excel has a range of IS functions which offer a way of telling if a condition is true or false.

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What are IS statements

IS functions are a range of formulas that start with IS and allow you to check if a criteria is met. If that criteria is met then the function will return TRUE, and if it isn’t met it will return FALSE.

The syntax for all IS functions is the same, they require only one input which will be a cell reference with a value in it.

The IS functions in Excel and their syntax are:

Function	Description
=ISBLANK(value)	Returns TRUE if the cell is empty
=ISNUMBER(value)	Returns TRUE if the cell contains a number
=ISTEXT(value)	Returns TRUE if the cell contains text
=ISERROR(value)	Returns TRUE if there is any error
=ISERR(value)	Returns TRUE for all errors except #N/A
=ISNA(value)	Returns TRUE if the cell contains the #N/A error
=ISLOGICAL(value)	Returns TRUE if the cell contains a logical value (TRUE or FALSE)
=ISFORMULA(value)	Returns TRUE if the cell contains a formula
=ISEVEN(number)	Returns TRUE if the number is even
=ISODD(number)	Returns TRUE if the number is odd

Using IS functions

To use an IS function you can click on a cell with a value and if the value matches the condition for the IS function then it will return TRUE or it will return FALSE if the condition is not met.

For example, you can use ISTEXT to see if a value in a cell is text or not:

ISNUMBER to see if a value is in a cell is a number or not:

And ISBLANK to see if a cell is blank or not.

This can be very useful if there is a space in a cell because Excel will treat the space as a value, so even though a cell will look blank to the naked eye it would not be considered blank by Excel for data purposes.

Using IS functions across a range

While IS functions only have one parameter that needs to be entered, you can enter a range rather than an individual cell in this parameter.

This will cause the output to spill across the range you selected.

To do this just select the range you want to analyse with the IS function.

Combining IS functions with IF statements

Because IS functions only return TRUE or FALSE you will need to combine them with IF statements to get a bespoke output.

The two functions work well together because the first part of an IF statement is a logic test which needs to have a true or false outcome, and the output returned by an IS statement will meet this requirement.

To do this you can nest an IS function in the logical_test parameter of an IF statement.

If you wanted to check if something was a number, and if it was then return that number, and if it wasn’t then have a text warning which said “Not a number” you could nest ISNUMBER in an IF statement.

This works because:

Like IS statements on their own you can enter a range when combined with IF to get a spilled output.

Conclusion

On their own IS functions evaluate a value in a cell and return TRUE or FALSE if that value matched the condition of the IS function.

This can be helpful to assess the quality of consistency of data, especially as the functions can be applied across a range and return a dynamic output.

If you want a more specific output then you can nest the IS function in the logical_test parameter of an IF statement and customise what output you want to see.