I want to conditionally format an entire column. Each cell in the column may
equal "Ready", "Archive", "Late-1", "Late-2", "Late-3", and so on. I want
all the cells that contain "Late" in them to have an interior colorindex = 3.
I think I need to return the first 4 letters of the cell in this condition.
How do I do that?

This does not work, because I do not know how to represent Cell.Value in
this formula below:
Cell Value Is - Equal To - =LEFT(Cell.Value, 4)="Late"

I would consider VBA code if it is really fast, the column may contain about
400 cells to scan down. I have this, but I would like a faster way to code
it.

For i = 3 To Cells(Rows.Count, "A").End(xlUp).Row
If Left(Cells(i, "L", 4)) = "Late" Then
Cells(i, "L").Interior.ColorIndex = 3
End If
Next i

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Cheers,
Ryan