This macro could be modified to make it more efficient, but I left
everything spelled out so you can follow it more easily.

Sub demo()
   Dim myTbl As Table
   Dim myRow As Row
   
   ' this assumes there is at least one table
   ' and the first is the one you're formatting
   Set myTbl = ActiveDocument.Tables(1)
   
   ' go through all the rows
   For Each myRow In myTbl.Rows
       If myRow.Cells(1).Range.Characters(1).Text = "a" Then
           myRow.Range.Font.Bold = True
           myRow.Range.Font.Color = wdColorWhite
           myRow.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorGreen
       End If
       
       If myRow.Cells(1).Range.Characters(1).Text = "p" Then
           myRow.Range.Font.Bold = False
           myRow.Range.Font.Color = wdColorYellow
           myRow.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorRed
       End If
       
       If myRow.Cells(1).Range.Characters(1).Text = "d" Then
           myRow.Range.Font.Bold = True
           myRow.Range.Font.Color = wdColorGray10
           myRow.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorBlue
       End If
   Next
End Sub

There are a couple of ways to handle tables in VBA. The first job is
to locate the particular table you want to work on (or else use a For
Each to work on all the tables in the document). That's the effect of
the Set statement.

The table object has several collections that let you work with its
pieces in various ways. This demo shows working with the Rows
collection, by using a For Each statement to cycle through all the
rows. There is also a Columns collection, which would be useful if you
wanted to format all the cells in a column the same way. And there's a
Cells collection, from which you can pick out individual cells by row
and column coordinates.

Within each row, the code checks the text in the first cell in that
row's Cells collection (not to be confused with the table's Cells
collection). Depending on what is there, at most one of the If
statements will have a true condition; if the first cell is blank or
has some other letter in it, then none of the If statements will have
a true condition.

The multiple If statements could be collected into a Select Case
statement for better efficiency.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP        FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.