I found this great post and man is it helping me do some simple formating of sharepoint lists.  CHeck it out i have also attached a word doc with the content in case it ever disappears.

http://pathtosharepoint.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/using-calculated-columns-to-write-html/

my favorite ="<DIV><IMG src='/_layouts/images/KPIDefault-"&(IF([Days Till Due]>7,0,IF([Days Till Due]>2,1,2)))&".gif' /></DIV>" with days till due a calc column =[Due Date]-Today

CalcColumnFormating.docx (98.92 KB)

TextToHtml.js (1.26 KB)