Find first non-blank item in a list with formulas

Blank cells are an invisible pain in the analysis. Dealing with them is frustrating, time-consuming and often very complex. At chandoo.org, we are not big fans of blank cells. That is why we wrote:

• How to delete blank cells & rows?
• Dealing with blanks – case study
• Quickly filling blank cells in a table
• Extracting non-blank data from a list

Today, lets talk about one more scenario. Lets say you want to find out the first non-blank item in a list. How would you do it?

Finding first non-blank item in a list

Lets say our list is in the range B3:B100.

Without using formulas

If you just want to get the first non-blank item in a list and do not want to use formulas, then you can remove all the blank items from the list. To do this:

1. Select entire list
2. Press F5, click on special
3. Choose blanks, click ok.
4. Press CTRL –
5. Remove rows (or shift cells up as needed).
6. Done!

Now that the blank cells are gone, just refer to B3 to get the first non-blank item in the list.

Using formulas

Although the non-formula approach works, it is manual. That means every time your data changes, you must repeat the steps. Not very cool, especially if you call yourself awesome. So, lets use a powerful formula to get that first non blank item in our list.

First see the formula:

=VLOOKUP("*", B3:B100, 1,FALSE)

How it works?

We want to lookup for first cell that contains something. It does not matter what that value is.

That is what * does. * is a wild card in Excel. When you ask VLOOKUP to find *, it finds the first cell that contains anything.

NOTE: This approach finds first cell that contains any TEXT. So if the first non-blank cell is a number (or date, % or Boolean value), the formula shows next cell that contains text.

How to find first non-blank value (text or number)?

If you want to find first non-blank value, whether it is text or number, then you can use below array formula.

=INDEX(B3:B100, MATCH(FALSE, ISBLANK(B3:B100), 0))

Make sure you press CTRL+Shift+Enter after typing this formula.

How this formula works?

ISBLANK(B3:B100) portion: This gives us list of TRUE / FALSE values depending on the 98 cells in B3:B100 are blank or not. It looks like this:

{TRUE;TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE; ...}

MATCH(FALSE, ISBLANK(…), 0) portion: Once we have the TRUE / FALSE values, we just need to find the first FALSE value (ie, first non-blank cell). That is what this MATCH function does. It finds an exact match of FALSE value in the list.  (Related: Using MATCH Formula)

INDEX(B3:B100, MATCH(…)) portion: Once we know which cell is the first non-blank cell, we need its value. That is what INDEX does. (Related: Introduction to INDEX formula)

Home work for you

If you like this formula and want some challenge, read on.

For these home work problems, use the range B3:B100 or named range list in your formulas.

1. Can you think of some other formulas to find first non-blank cell?
2. What formula gives 2nd non-blank cell value?
3. What formula gives last non-blank cell value?

Go ahead and post your answers using comments.

Drawing a blank when working on lookups?

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