Find a Word in Column A & change the background & Text to Black

Can you show us what you're doing? Where you have the chart of these strings and the color designations?

Post up a sample sheet and point out your key cell(s) and charts.

EDIT:

Also, your other post is similar and the answer given there COULD be adapted to a conditional format for the cell in question.
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...-column-b.html

Look up conditional formatting and see if the formula/solution offered previously can work for this need, too. You would need to settle on 3 colors for this in Excel 2003.