Format blank cells based on another cell's value?

Hello,

Is it possible to format *blank* cells based on another cell's value?

I know how to format cells based on their blank-ness. And I know how to format non-blank cells by comparing their values to another cell.

But what if there's nothing in the blank cells to compare to the target cell?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks



FURTHER DETAIL:
I have a worksheet which dynamically generates a categorized list based on references from another sheet. THE NUMBER OF CATEGORIES AND ITEMS WITHIN EACH CATEGORY will change regularly, based on another sheet's data. In other words, which rows are "Category Heading" rows will vary dynamically, and cannot have static formatting.

COLUMN A = Hidden "helper" column. Determines whether this row is a Category Heading or an item row, based on formula (counting items/categories on separate sheet).
COLUMNS B & C = Display Category / Item names depending on the value of Column A
COLUMNS D...F (and further) = BLANK for manual data entry. (Other cells will reference these for summing, averaging, etc.) I would like these blacked out if A="Cat."

A	B	C	D	E	F
Cat	CATEGORY 1	BLANK - WOULD LIKE BLACKED OUT WHEN COL A="Cat"	(Black if A="Cat")	(Black if A="Cat")	(Black if A="Cat")
Item		Item 1	Data	Data	Data
Item		Item 2	Data	Data	Data
Item		Item 3	Data	Data	Data
Cat	CATEGORY 1	BLANK - WOULD LIKE BLACKED OUT BASED ON COL A="Cat"	(Black if A="Cat")	(Black if A="Cat")	(Black if A="Cat")
Item		Item 1	Data	Data	Data
Item		Item 2	Data	Data	Data

Thanks

Thanks! That worked great -- I thought I had tried that but I must have messed up the syntax somehow.