Convert ISERROR formulas to IFERROR formulas [macro]

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Last Friday, we have learned about an interesting formula – IFERROR Formula using which you can easily handle errors in Excel workbooks.

Quite a few people reading that page asked, “Wow, this is good. But how can I take a sheet full of =IF(ISERROR(…)….) formulas and convert them to =IFERROR()”

There is a different set of folks who asked “Wow, this is good. But quite a few of my colleagues use Excel 2003 and they see a bunch of #NAME errors when I send them an excel workbook with IFERROR formulas. Any help?!?”

I am pleased to announce that I wrote 2 simple macros, iferror2iserror() and iserror2iferror() that would scan formulas in a bunch of selected cells and convert them from IFERROR to ISERROR and vice-a-versa. Pretty cool, eh?

Download Excel Macros Workbook

Click here to download the workbook that has macros to convert IFERROR formulas to ISERROR formulas and vice-a-versa.

If you just want to examine the code:

Click here to view the VBA Module code.

What are these macros and how do they work?

The workbook contains 2 macros – iferror2iserror() & iserror2iferror().

What does iferror2iserror() macro do?

As the name suggests, It scans a bunch of selected cells for any IFERROR formulas and then converts them to ISERROR formulas.

For eg. if a cell has =IFERROR(expression, error), the output would be =IF(ISERROR(expression),error,expression)

What does iserror2iferror() macro do?

This macro scans a bunch of selected cells for any ISERROR formulas and then converts them to IFERROR formulas.

For eg. if a cell has =IF(ISERROR(expression),error,expression), the output would be =IFERROR(expression, error)

How to use these macros?

Very simple. Just select the cells with formulas and then run the required macro. The macros only affect cells with either IFERROR or ISERROR formulas.

Convert ISERROR formulas to IFERROR formulas and vice-a-versa - Excel Macros

What are the limitations of these macros?

These macros should hold good for many real life scenarios. That said,

  1. These macros do not check for IFERROR (or ISERROR) recursively. ie, if a formula has IFERROR inside another IFERROR, only the first one would be converted.
  2. These macros do not work when you have commas (,) inside the formula in double quotes. For eg. the below formula fails.
    =IFERROR(VLOOKUP("Kirk, James",tblStarwars,2,false),"Captain not found"))

    Your comments:

    How do you convert IFERROR or ISERROR formulas? Do you use a macro or you manually change the formulas? Please share your techniques and ideas using comments.

    Also, if you wish to modify the code, please feel free to do so. Share your work with rest of us thru comments so that we can benefit too.

    Get more Macro examples:

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    21 Responses to “How to Filter Odd or Even Rows only? [Quick Tips]”

    1. Vijay says:

      Infact, instead of using =ISEVEN(B3), how about to use =ISEVEN(ROW())

      So it takes away any chance of wrong referencing.

    2. Hui... says:

      I like Daily Dose of Excel

    3. vimal says:

      I like it.

    4. Luke M says:

      Just a heads up, you do need to have the Analysis ToolPak add-in activated to use the ISEVEN / ISODD functions. An alternative to ISEVEN would be:
      =MOD(ROW(),2)=0

    5. Debbi says:

      rather than use a formula, couldn't you enter "true" in first cell and "false" in the second and drag it down and than filter on true or false.

    6. Paul S says:

      Just for clarification, is Ashish looking to filter by even or odd Characters or rows?

    7. Fred says:

      so many functions to learn!

    8. Istiyak says:

      Nice support by chandoo and team as a helpdesk. Give us more to learn and make us awesome. Always be helpful.......

    9. Arps says:

      In case you want to delete instead of filter,

      IF your data is in Sheet1 column A
      Put this in Sheet2 column A and drag down
      =OFFSET(Sheet1!A$1,(ROWS($1:1)-1)*2,,)
      (This is to delete even rows)

      To delete odd rows :
      =OFFSET(Sheet1!A$2,(ROWS($1:1)-1)*2,,)

    10. Pippa says:

      If your numbered cells did not correspond to rows, the answer would be even simpler:
      =MOD([cell address],2), then filter by 0 to see evens or 1 to see odds.

    11. Matthew D. Healy says:

      I sometimes do this using an even simpler method. I add a new column called "Sign" and put the value of 1 in the first row, say cell C2 if C1 contains the header. Then in C3 I put the formula =-1 * C2, which I copy and paste into the rest of the rows (so C4 has =-1 * C3 and so forth). Now I can just apply a filter and pick either +1 or -1 to see half the rows.

      Another way, which works if I want three possibilities: in C2 I put the value 1, in C3 I put the value 2, in C4 I put the value 3, then in C5 I put the formula =C2 then I copy C5 and paste into all the remaining rows (so C6 gets =C3, C7 gets =C4, etc.). Now I can apply a filter and pick the value 1, 2, or 3 to see a third of the rows.

      Extending this approach to more than 3 cases is left as an exercise for the reader.

    12. Paulo says:

      Another way =MOD(ROW();2). In this case, must to choose betwen 1 and 0.

    13. Makhan Butt says:

      very different style Odd or Even Rows very easy way to visit this site

      http://www.handycss.com/tips/odd-or-even-rows/

    14. Terhile says:

      Thanks for the tip, it worked like magic, saved having to delete row by row in my database.

    15. majid says:

      Thankssssssssssssssss

    16. Bhanu says:

      Hi Chandoo- First of all thanks for the trick. It helped me a lot. Here I have one more challenge. Having filtered the data based on odd. I want to paste data in another sheet adjacent to it. How can I do that?
      For Example-
      A 1 odd
      B 3 odd
      C 4 even
      D 6 even
      I have fileted the above data for odd and want to copy the "This is odd number" text in adjacent/next sheet here. How can I do that. After doing this my data should look like this
      A 1 odd This is odd number
      B 3 odd This is odd number
      C 4 even
      D 6 even

    17. Adriana says:

      Hi! Could you please help me find a formula to filter by language?
      Thank you!

    18. avinash says:

      Chandoo SIR,

      I HAVE A DATA IN EXCEL ROWS LIKE BELOW IS THERE ANY FORMULA OR A WAY WHERE I CAN INSTRUCT I CAN MAKE CHANGES , MEANS I WANT TO WRITE ONLY , THE FIG IS FRESH, BUT IN BELOW ROW IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY TAKE THE SOME WORDS FROM FIGS AND MAKE IN PLURAL FORM , WHILE USING '' ARE'' LIKE BELOW

      The fig is fresh - row 1
      Figs are fresh - row 2
      The Pomegranate is red - row 3
      Pomegranates are red - row 4

    19. Arshad Hussain Shah says:

      =IF(EVEN(A1)=A1,"EVEN - do something","ODD - do something else") with iferron (for blank Cell)

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