thank you Opaque, that is brilliant, just what I was after, can I ask a further question please? in column A I have either "A" or "H" in which I have applied your suggestions, "A" is blue and "H" is red font, I wish to apply further conditional formatting to column F in which if A1 is red then F1is also red, and if A1 is blue then F1 is also blue, down the column for 46 entries, hope that makes sence, again your help and advice is appreciated
ot's ok I have managed to sort the answer out, took a bit of thought but got there in the end
again thank you Opaque for starting me off, I appreciate it