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

What I am trying to do have any cell that is in AA to become Black if the
cell in A does not contain "Ships" or "Personnel". The problem that is
occurring is that with the above Formula none of the cells become black, if I
take away the NOT() in the formula, ALL cells become black. If I take ISERR()
instead of NOT() all cells are not black.

Another similarly problem I have with trying to use with the OR() and trying
to get cells to turn black or not is:
=ISERR(OR(NOT(SEARCH($A3,"Personnel"),SEARCH($A3," Ships"),SEARCH($A3,"Dilemma"),SEARCH($A3,"Event")) ,SEARCH($I3,"1st"))))
and would effect the cells:
$W$3:$W$6027

In this one, any cell in I with "1st" in it would make W black, or if it
does not contain "Ships", "Personnel", "Event", "Dilemma" it would turn
black. However this one returns various errors. Either stating equivalent to
"Too Complicated" or "Check your formula for errors".

If anyone could help me with trying to get these formulas to work out, I
would appreciate it.

Also something that confounds me at the moment while using the NOT()
statement in a formula is that it is stated that NOT(FALSE)=TRUE,
NOT(TRUE)=FALSE.
Hence, if say a cell in I# = 2nd and I have a Conditional Formula of
=SEARCH($I#,"2nd") to turn J# black, it should equal TRUE. But apparently it
is received as FALSE? And I have to add NOT() to make the condition TRUE?