New user needing help

[ChefDan]

Hi All,

I'm new to using Excel & would like some help.

I'm a chef & what I would like to do is use excel to do my rotas for work. I've seen it done elsewhere but I don't know how they did it.

What I would like to do is when entering a shift eg E or Early have excel turn that word into a number eg 8 so I can add up the hours in the last box of the row.
However I don't want to see 8 in the cell, so when I print the rota it still says E or Early.

Also how can you change the colour of the cell to show days off eg when I enter rest the cell turns blue & if I put Holiday it turns red etc.

Thank you in adavance for your help

Chef Dan.