Conditional formatting help

Hi,
I wonder if anyone can help me solve a problem that's had me scratching my head for days.
I need to apply conditional formatting to cells to illustrate an increase or decrease in severity of a certain behaviour. If this behaviour is displayed it will have a start date entered, if not it will remain blank. I've put the columns in order of increasing severity. An increase should display red, a decrease should display blue

"CIN Y/N?"
"Start Date"
"End Date?"
"CPP Y/N"
"Start Date"
"End Date?"
"LAC Y/N?"
"Start Date"
"End Date?"

Based on the ascending column headings above I had applied a format that compared if the cell was less than those to the left of it, it would turn blue and red if less than those to the right. Which works fine until any date is entered and even blank cells change colour. I tried playing around with a formula is =ISBLANK as the first condition but this doesn't seem to work, plus it leaves me not enough formatting option remaining to compare all cells (Excel 2003.) Is there any way I can make it ignore blank cells or that I can nest comparisons to cells eg cell value=<A1,D1,G1 then apply format. Sincereley hope this makes sense!!

I will indeed!! I just need to work out how to do that

Happily but how do I upload a workbook? This may seem simple but I can't seem to figure it out!!
Thanks

Sincere apologies but I cannot find any button with a paperclip or a manage attachments button (perhaps this explains why I have problems with my workbook in the first place!) Am I looking on the post page?
Sorry....

Ha ha! I was simply using the quick reply, thank you for spelling it out for me! Is now attached and I truly appreciate all your help and patience!

Of course. The conditional formatting is in the columns toward the end under each column entitled 'start date.' The idea being that as each date is input it compares to the start dates in the other columns.

Thanks ever so much for your help.

Hi
I've explored the 'OR' function on your recommendation and worked out how to do it. I can't thank you enough!! And thank you also for taking me through how to use the site....really appreciated!!