If you are fighting blank cells in Excel Online, you are fighting a tool that was not built to let you win. This user's frustration is familiar to anyone who has tried to apply conditional formatting in the browser version: you write a rule to highlight dates that are today or earlier, and every empty cell lights up as if it, too, has a deadline. The workaround, setting a "no format" rule and checking "stop if true", simply does not exist in the online interface. You cannot set no format because the default is a format, and you cannot paint blanks white because some of those cells are deliberately left empty for other content. The user is stuck between a rule that works too broadly and a platform that refuses to let them narrow it.
This is not a user error. It is a product limitation that forces people to either accept broken formatting or abandon the workflow entirely. The user has already done the logical troubleshooting: they looked up fixes, found that desktop Excel offers a clean solution, and discovered that the online version simply omits it. That gap matters. Conditional formatting is one of the most practical tools in any spreadsheet, and when it breaks on something as basic as skipping blanks, the tool stops being helpful and starts being an obstacle. The audience here understands spreadsheets well enough to know that a workaround exists, but they also know that workarounds should not be necessary for a standard feature.
What this user really needs is a tool that treats blank cells as data, not as noise. A modern spreadsheet should let you define a rule and have it apply only where it makes sense, without requiring a separate rule to undo the first one. That is not a luxury feature. It is a basic expectation of conditional logic. The fact that a browser-based spreadsheet cannot handle it suggests that the product's design is still anchored to desktop assumptions, even as more users work online every day. The solution should not be "switch to desktop." The solution should be "the tool adapts to how you work."
If you are tired of fighting blank cells, you are not looking for a patch. You are looking for a platform that understands conditional formatting as a set of intentions, not a list of rules. Stop accepting that the online version is a second-class experience. Demand a spreadsheet that treats every cell, even the empty ones, with the same respect for your intent.