Format Painter : Time Saving Trick

Format Painter

You can use the Format Painter to quickly apply formatting from text, shapes, and pictures to another text selection, shape, or picture. For example, you can quickly copy a picture border from one picture to another, or copy shape formatting from one shape to multiple shapes.

It is a quick and easy way to apply your existing formatting without having to manually set up the the number formatting, alignment, font, border, and patterns for the cells.

Let's look at an example of how to use the Format Painter in Excel 2007.

•     Select the shape, text, or worksheet cell that has the formatting that you want to copy.
• On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click Format Painter.

             The pointer changes to a paintbrush.

       NOTE:  Double-click the Format Painter button if you want to copy the formatting to multiple selections.

• Select the shape, text, or worksheet cell that has the formatting that you want to format.To copy the formatting to a single cell, several cells, or a range or ranges of cells, drag the mouse pointer across the cells or ranges of cells that you want to format.
•     To stop formatting, press ESC.

TIP:  You can quickly copy column widths. To copy the width of one column to a second column, select the heading of the first column, click Format Painter, and then click the heading of the column that you want to apply the column width to. You cannot copy the column width if a merged cell includes the column from which you want to copy the width.