"Al" wrote...
Norman, I need to simplify the answer. These solutions (appear to) require
VBA programming, and mine is non-existant! mAny more suggestions please?
....

The only other suggestion would be to use a different spreadsheet program.
Excel provides *NO* built-in (worksheet function) means of determining cell
background or text color. If you need to do this, you *MUST* use VBA or
(much more cumbersome, infelxible and error-prone) XLM functions.