excel question about solver & formulas

[marduk813]

here's my situation:
i have a vb macro that calls solver to populate its target cell ("Required&quot. however, if there is data in another cell ("Lump&quot, then i don't want solver to act, and i want a simple formula to be placed in Required instead.
i've written a simple "if..then" to check for data in Lump, but for some reason it finds data there whether or not there actually is any. here is my code (Required is F7):

LastYear = 20 + Range("Years").Value
If Range("Lump").Value = "" Then
    SolverOk SetCell:="$E" & LastYear, MaxMinVal:=3, ValueOf:="0", ByChange:="$F$7"
    SolverSolve (True)
Else
    Range("Required").Value = "=C11/C5"
End If

i've also tried the If statement as

If Range("Lump").Value = 0 Then

but that doesn't work either. neither statements will allow solver to act whether the Lump cell is empty or 0. if Lump contains a number, it works as expected (with the exception that the Required cell is completely black no matter what colors i set for it)

so basically it comes down to this: if the Lump cell is empty or 0, i want solver to act. if it contains a number (other than 0), i want to place a formula in the Required cell and solver will not act.

any ideas?

 

[plantj]

Try

if IsEmpty(Range("Lump&quot.Value) _
or Trim(Range("Lump".Value))="&quot then
...

IsEmpty is the recommended way but it doesn't work with a space filled cell hence my second condition.

 

[marduk813]

thanks plantj. i had forgotten about IsEmpty. i plugged in the code and i'm sure it would work if it weren't for solver still doing something. i can't understand why even when the Lump cell is empty, the Required cell is still filled in with the formula "=C11/C5". i could probably troubleshoot that, but now whatever result shows up in Required (anything not from solver) is black on black, therefore unreadable. no matter what font/background colors i select, if solver doesn't fill in Required, then everything is black.