Problem: Why did you use the white font to hide those cells? Isn't there a custom number format to hide values?
Strategy: Yes. You could select the cells, press Ctrl+1, then choose Custom and type three semi-colons to hide the text in the cell.
- Using ;;; will hide the cell contents.
Gotcha: While nothing will appear in the cells, if someone selects the cell, they can see the cell formula in the formula bar. If the cell contains a constant (i.e. anything other than a formula), then they will see the cell value as well.
- The cells are hidden, except in the formula bar.
The other problem with this method: if the data is being used in a chart, then the labels along both axis of the chart will be hidden as well. Here is the chart before hiding the data:
- Both axis have labels.
After hiding the data, the axis labels are gone.
- Axis labels are hidden when the range is hidden.