A formula can only produce a result in its own cell.

"MML" wrote:

~ I have created a time chart which uses conditional formatting to produce
time-bars which look a bit like MS Project time bars. Year weeks 1 - 52
start/finish dates are on the top, horzontal axis, event dates are on the
left, vertical axis.
~ (Apart from the left axis columns) the date indicator columns are only
one character wide. The nested 'IF' functions in these c ells do three
different things. Either they shade a cell (using conditional formatting) to
indicate a period of time, or they produce the title of the event (to the
left of a time-bar), or they show blank.
~ The problem is that when the 'IF' function produces an event title, it
needs to spread over several narrow columns which contain the nested 'IF'
function formulae but are producing no output.
~ Can text be made to be displayed on top of cells which contain 'IF'
formulae which are intentionally producing a nil result.

--
MML