Conditional Formatting 3 color scale

Hi helpers,

I have attached my sheet.

What I need to be incorporated in the sheet is under the title "Number of sick days 2011" is some kind of bar chart that for each individual show the number of sick days they have had so far in 2011. As I updated the number of sick days in column D, I expect the bar to also change.

I also thought that Conditional Formatting might be used to for example show a green/yellow/red bar based on the following criteria: Green<10, 10<yellow>14 and red>14.

How on earth do it set that up so it also looks good in my sheet?

Excel 2007 doesn't really have in-cell charts... Excel 2010 does...

Here is an alternative attached, if it pleases you.

I basically inserted a bunch of narrow columns and applied conditional formatting to produce a gantt chart in the small area... you can add more columns if you want to show more (or keep it as if you want to define a point where the dates exceed allowable).

The conditional format applied to range $E$5:$DS$25 is:

=AND($D5<>"",COLUMNS($E5:E5)<=$D5)

I guess I was outsmarted.... didn't think of the data bars... not enough playing around with the "special" conditional formatting introduced in 2007....

I think that is where I went offtrack. The original request was for a green/yellow/red scale and I started looking at traffic lights. I knew the data bars didn't offer colour, so steered away... and instead I came up with my alternative, which didn't even account for the tricolor request...

You threw me when you said 2007 didn't have it because I've never used it before but was pretty sure there was something that was at least similar. So I looked for it and was surprised to find the bars didn't offer much in the way of control re colour gradient or width.

@ Kagesen
Here is one more tweak to soften the look of the full fill alternative (applied only to the green in this example):

Deleted.....see next post