In the Format Cell tools, there is a pallet of 56 colors and 18 patterns that
could be applied (manually).

I need to display "remote" data graphically alongside a row of affliated
information in a worksheet. My "remote data" may be a number or a text
string. What I was hoping to do is create a function which would work
similar to a Vlookup. I would like the resulting cell (with the function) to
contain either color fill and or patterns. No other information needs to be
displayed in the cell except for the color and/or pattern.

Any thoughts on how this could be automated?