# Formula to check if the description field (rich text) is empty or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Get Help\ **Created:** [November 12, 2020, 1:01pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162 "2020-11-12T13:01:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nimesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a5b964/32.png) [@nimesh](https://community.fibery.io/u/nimesh)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 1:01pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/1 "2020-11-12T13:01:10Z")
I have been trying to figure out the formula to check if the description(rich text) is empty or not. So, a little help would be very helpful. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Haslien](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/haslien/32/493_2.png) [@Haslien](https://community.fibery.io/u/Haslien)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 1:19pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/2 "2020-11-12T13:19:04Z")
Should be as simple as `IsEmpty(Description)` which returns a boolean value. If you want a text returned based on true/false, you can do `If(IsEmpty(Description), "No text", "There is text")`. ---
**Author:** ![nimesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a5b964/32.png) [@nimesh](https://community.fibery.io/u/nimesh)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 2:10pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/3 "2020-11-12T14:10:21Z")
Thank you for your reply. I have tried them but somehow it returns the same value for everything. Even if I don’t have anything in the description field, it returns non-empty. ---
**Author:** ![Haslien](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/haslien/32/493_2.png) [@Haslien](https://community.fibery.io/u/Haslien)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 2:18pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/4 "2020-11-12T14:18:16Z")
It may be that the formula evaluation is slow. It was slow for me yesterday, where it took between 3 minutes to 15 minutes for it to update. Try to leave it for up that time, it should work. Hopefully they get around to fixing performance issue with it soon 🙂 **EDIT:** I did some additional checks to verify and found that the `Description` is counted as a Document rather than text, so it may actually have a different behaviour. I also did some inverted tests that indicate evaluation is no longer slow and gave unexpected results. This leads me to believe that either certain evaluations are slow, or this is a bug. It may be the latter, depending on how it check what constitutes as empty. If it’s still incorrect 15 minutes from now, I think it’s safe to assume it is a bug, and I’d suggest making a bug report. ---
**Author:** ![nimesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a5b964/32.png) [@nimesh](https://community.fibery.io/u/nimesh)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/5 "2020-11-12T14:54:28Z")
Yes, I think it’s a bug or the feature has not yet been implemented. I have reported it here > [@Formula for checking if the description field(rich text) is empty, is not working](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-for-checking-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-not-working/1163): > > I have tried IsEmpty(Description) to check if the description field is empty or not. But it keeps returning the same value in every entity. Everything is returned as non-empty. Performance does not seems to be the issue because I have waited around half an hour after the formula has been entered. This was also discussed here. [https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162) Thank you. Thank you ---
**Author:** ![Polina\_Zenevich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/polina_zenevich/32/480_2.png) [@Polina\_Zenevich](https://community.fibery.io/u/Polina_Zenevich)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2020, 12:24pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/6 "2020-11-13T12:24:37Z")
Hi, guys! Thanks for pointing that problem 🙂 That is not a bug in fact - it is an undeveloped feature. Currently, our formulas (any of it) doesn’t support the Rich Text field (ex: description). So, what we have in plans (no eta for now, unfortunately) - Check if the Rich Text Field is empty or not - Count the number of characters in the Rich Text Field - Count the number of words in the Rich Text Field If you have any other suggestions with use cases - will be glad to update our backlog 🤗 ---
**Author:** ![nimesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a5b964/32.png) [@nimesh](https://community.fibery.io/u/nimesh)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/7 "2020-11-13T13:52:58Z")
Hi Polina, Thank you for clarifying it. An additional suggestion I would like to add is support for the checklist. - If an unticked checklist exists? - If a ticked checklist exists? This way if we can have some sort of subtask indicator like in the image attached below. - Here, the green check emoji is shown when all the checkboxes are ticked - The empty emoji if there are checkboxes with unticked items. - And if there is no checkbox, the indicator is empty. To take it further, the indicator can be used to filter and sort things. ![Capture](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/fibery/original/2X/4/459443761afbd2978dcd0160792ef68d108eb223.png) ---
**Author:** ![Polina\_Zenevich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/polina_zenevich/32/480_2.png) [@Polina\_Zenevich](https://community.fibery.io/u/Polina_Zenevich)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/8 "2020-11-13T13:56:45Z")
Looks pretty cool, thanks, got it! ---
**Author:** ![Dimitri\_S](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/dimitri_s/32/1683_2.png) [@Dimitri\_S](https://community.fibery.io/u/Dimitri_S)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/formula-to-check-if-the-description-field-rich-text-is-empty-or-not/1162/9 "2022-08-05T14:51:07Z")
If you come across this post only to find out that `IsEmpty(Description)` does not work, please vote and voice your need here: > [@Allow Rules/Formula Involving Rich-Text Fields](https://community.fibery.io/t/allow-rules-formula-involving-rich-text-fields/2108): > > Is this possible? #1 (Rule): If a rich-text field is not empty, then a checkbox’s value becomes ‘True’ #2 (Rule): If a rich-text field is not empty, copy the first few words to a text field Use-case: I just want to know if any of the rich-text fields are populated without having to click on the entity