Excel – How to keep cell blank until data is entered in another cell

microsoft excel

I want to leave the columns B and H blank, until data is entered in column D. How do i do that?

The formula in column H is =B-D

I'm using using Excel on Mac.

image of the Excel sheet

Translation of column headers:

B4 - Total number of hours in bank
D4 - Number of hours used
F4 - Date
H4 - Remaining hours

Assuming Column B is a static value of 6.5 or your data comes from another cell/sheet/workbook/formula.

ISBLANK Method

In Column B

Since I do not know where your values for column B are coming from below are several options.

If your values in Column B are entered in manually try,
```
=IF(ISBLANK($D5),"",8) 
```
or if your values is remaining hours from Column H calculations,
```
=IF(ISBLANK($D5),"",$H5) 
```
or from another cell,
```
=IF(ISBLANK($D5),"",Q5) 
```
or even if from another sheet,
```
=IF(ISBLANK($D5),"",Sheet2!$B5)
```

or from another workbook,

=IF(ISBLANK($D5),"",'C:\TimeBank\[NameofSpreadsheet.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A5)

In Column H

=IF(ISBLANK($D5),"",$B5-$D5)