conditional match first 2 letters of 3 cells

What would be a conditional format formula that would return a result based on 3 cells in a row of 10 cells all having the same first 2 identical letters? Example, if the words in the 3 cells all start with EV, the whole row would stay unaffected, but if one of the 3 cells had a word that began with something different, say EE, then the row would be highlighted in red. I have figured out how to match two, but cannot get three. I appreciate your consideration, Gary

Originally Posted by allgeef

If the words in the 3 cells all start with EV, the whole row would stay unaffected, but if one of the 3 cells had a word that began with something different, say EE, then the row would be highlighted in red

Assuming you need to check three specific cells (rather than three from ten) then:

=COUNTIF($A1:$C1,"<>"&LEFT($A1,2)&"*")
format as appropriate

COUNTIF would not be viable if the three cells in question were non-contiguous. If that's the case you can adapt bentlybob's approach to an OR based inequality test:

=OR(LEFT($A1,2)<>LEFT($B1,2),LEFT($A1,2)<>LEFT($D1,2))
format as appropriate

In the above example we change from contiguous range of A1:C1 to non-contiguous range of A1:B1,D1