ISERROR

Description

Use this function to determine if a cell has any type of error flag. Supported in Chains.

This includes the #N/A, #VALUE!, #REF!, #DIV/0!, #NUM!, #NAME?, and #NULL! errors.

Syntax

ISERROR(value)

Inputs

This function has the following arguments:

Name	Required	Description	Valid Input
`value`	Yes	The cell that you want to evaluate.	A reference to a cell, or a formula which results in one.

Examples

Sample data

	A	B
1	Item	Value
2	red	56
3	green	39
4	orange	15
5	red	92
6	blue	22

Sample formulas

Use case	Formula	Explanation and Result
Check to see if the specified cell contains an error.	`=ISERROR(A1)`	This formula works in the following manner: `ISERROR(`: This is the function itself, checking for any error value except #N/A. `A1`: The cell reference to check. The function returns TRUE if the cell contains any error value (#VALUE!, #REF!, #DIV/0!, #NUM!, #NAME?, or #NULL!), and FALSE otherwise (including if the cell is blank or contains #N/A). For this data set this formula returns FALSE. (Because cell A1 is empty.)
Check to see if the specified cell contains an error.	`=ISERROR(B1)`	This formula works in the following manner: `ISERROR(`: This is the function itself. `B1`: The cell reference to check. For this data set this formula returns TRUE (because cell B1 contains a #N/A! error)
Check to see if the specified cell contains an error.	`=ISERROR(A2)`	This formula works in the following manner: `ISERROR(`: This is the function itself. `A2`: The cell reference to check. For this data set this formula returns FALSE. (Because cell A1 contains "green".)
Check to see if any of a set of cells contains an error.	`=IF(OR(ISERROR(A1),ISERROR(B1),ISERROR(C1)),"An error happened")`	This formula works in the following manner: `ISERROR(A1)`, `ISERROR(B1)`, `ISERROR(C1)`: These check if each respective cell contains any error value (excluding #N/A). `OR(...)`: Returns TRUE if any of the ISERROR checks return TRUE. `IF(OR(...), "An error happened")`: If the OR condition is TRUE (at least one cell has an error other than #N/A), it returns the text "An error happened". Otherwise, it returns the default value FALSE. For this data set this formula returns An error happened. (Because cell B1 contains a #N/A! error.)

Notes

Cell ranges aren't supported.
You can join multiple instances of ISERROR to check if any of a set of cells is blank:
=IF(OR(ISERROR(A1),ISERROR(B1),ISERROR(C1)),"An Error happened",SUM(A1:C1))
Because will return TRUE if any supplied value is TRUE, the formula will display "An error happened" if any of the cells identified with an function return TRUE.

Tips

You can use ISERROR as follows:

To trap an error and perform a calculation, is a cleaner approach.
You can combine ISERROR with the function to reverse the logic to "is not an error". Example: =NOT(ISERROR(A1))

Related functions

COUNT
COUNTA
COUNTBLANK
COUNTIF
COUNTIFS
ISBLANK
ISERROR
ISNA
ISNUMBER
VALUE

Support

Community

Workiva Support Center