Applying conditional formatting to cells containing various text

[JMatBoS]

I'd appreciate help with the following...

I have several thousand cells across multiple columns and rows that contain long text strings.

I want to format cells which contain one of a group of values
eg. cells containing aaa or bbb or ccc would be one colour, ddd or eee or fff another colour, etc.

I know I can use conditional formatting where cells contain specific text but this is likely to be a labourious process. There could be over a hundred text values and only a handful of different formats.

 

[Noodleski]

You could add your instances of aaa, bbb and ccc to one column on a hidden sheet.
The next group of strings in the column next to it.

And then have as many conditional formats as you have groups with following condition:
(group of strings to be caught by the condition are in column K, the condition is entered for whatever range you want, but your top left cell selected is B2. Adjust as needed)
Condition formula:
VLOOKUP(B2,K:K,1,0)=B2

And set format specifications, of course.

 

[Noodleski]

I should read the OP better. Containing =/= equal to. I'll get back to the drawing board.