Making cells blank after formula inserted "" text string

[derek.hughes]

I wrote nested IF formulas and for the "false" result I told it to enter the text string "" so the cell would appear blank.

I can filter out those cells as blank, but not sort them. I have tried a copy/paste special (values) and it still leaves something behind that the sort is picking-up. I can tell because I tried an IF(ISBLANK(A3),"","XXX") and X's appeared.

1. Any way I can get rid of the residual blank I entered in the text string ""?
2. Should I use something different in the initial IF formulas besides the text string ""?

Thank you in advance - this one has me very puzzled.

Derek

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

If you can filter for them you should be able to press Delete when they are selected.

 

[derek.hughes]

Oh my goodness! Thank you, Andrew - that is so easy! I was stuck on the formula and didn't see the obvious right in front of me - thank you for setting me on course.

 

[JoeMo]

if the objective is to sort after pastespecial values, use a character or charcters that doesn't appear elsewhere in your data:

=IF(A1<10,B1,REPT("z",10))

or

=IF(A1<10,B1,"~")