I use Excel sheets to track the status of tasks through a set of discrete statuses. I'd like to be able to format these automatically, with the start being red, the end being green and progressing through the combination colors in the middle. Status1 (Red) Status2 (More Red than Green) Status3 (More Green than Red) Status4 (Green) The "Color Scales" option under Conditional Formatting seems like it could be made to work, but it wants numbers. So, my question, can it be done? Using conditional formatting or other formulas to achieve the desired affect?