I will "revisit" the solution you gave and give it a go.

But... I would appreciate it if you could post the condition string
from conditional  formatting that is generated that works.

We are on the same page here right?
If the cell contains "" from the IF, then the cell looks nomal...
white background and black text but there isn't any text.
If the cell contains anything else then the font is red and the
background is yellow.