Thanks, this helps a lot, Things work now, (as well as cleans up a lot of the
messy formulas I had there.)

And no, "Ships" or "Personnel" would be the only text within that cell
(along with other single worded cells)

And for items that were listed within column A, if it was blank, it would
have no "row" of information after it.

I was having the background of the cell being simply filled black, since
other columns wouldn't require certain cells to be filled based on what
column A had.


"T. Valko" wrote:

any cell that is in AA to become Black if the cell
in A does not contain "Ships" or "Personnel".

Is "Ships" or "Personnel" part of a larger string?

What if the A3 is empty? What do you want to become Black, the text or the
fill color?

Try something like this:

=NOT(OR(A3="personnel",A3="ships"))


--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"EEB3" wrote in message
...
I have been trying to make a conditional format criteria using the "Formula
is", but has not been working quite right.

The formula I have is this:
=NOT(ISERR(OR(SEARCH($A3,"Personnel"),SEARCH($A3," Ships"))))
and it would effect the cells:
=$AA$3:$AA$6027