Jason,
Conditional formatting has to do with changing the text colour, text font,
the colour fill etc of a cell based on the value in that cell or another
cell. So we could have B8 go from green to yellow to red when a use typed 1,
2 or 3 in that cell. What CF cannot do is change what value is displayed in
the cell.

The IF function is a conditional FORMULA. So in any cell (say D8) we might
use:
IF(B8 = 1, "Value is 1", "Value is not 1")

The syntax is =IF(condition, true_value, false_value)

We can next IF statements as in
=IF(B8=1,C4, IF(B8=2, C5, C6))
The cell with this formula (it cannot be B8 or C4:C6) will display what is
in C4 when B8 has value 1, what is in C5 when B8 has value 2, or what is in
C6 when B8 has value 3 (or anything else of that matter)

This formula will do the same =CHOOSE(B8,C4,C5,C6); except when B8 is some
value other than 1,2 or 3 it will display the #VALUE! error.

best wishes
--
Bernard Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://people.stfx.ca/bliengme

"Jason" wrote in message
...
Hello, I am trying to make a traffic light with symbols and I've read to
'use
a separate cell for the dropdown choices, with their resulting value
linked
into the formatted cell through an IF function, using the character that
you
want to
display.'

So:
=IF someone enters '1' in B8, THEN display contents of $C$4 (will it
display
font and attributes?)
=IF someone enters '2' in B8, THEN display contents of $C$5
=IF someone enters '3' in B8, THEN display contents of $C$6

But I've been reading everywhere and CF is very new to me and I need some
guidence if you have the time. thank you!