How to copy formatting style using “Format Painter"

Many times, while working in excel, we may face a situation where, we have a data with specific formatting style and we want to copy same formatting style in another location. We can do it manually but it will be very critical while working on a large data also it is time consuming.

To do this task within a seconds, there is one command available in excel: “Format Painter”. We can find this command in Home Tab under Clipboard Group.

So let’s have a look on how we can use this command effectively to save our time and efforts.

Here we will take an example of Marks scored by students in Maths and Science.

In Table 1, we have listed marks scored by five students in Maths. We have applied some formatting to this table as below:

1. We made text in the first row of this table to Bold.
2. We have applied border to entire table.
3. We have changed background color of all the cells from table to Light Green.

Now we have another data in Table 2, in which we have listed marks scored by five students in Science but without any formatting.
We now want to copy same formatting style in Table 2 which we have applied to Table 1.

 

We can do these manually also by following all the three steps one by one for table 2. But it will consume lot of time. Also it is very critical to apply formatting manually when we are working with large data. So, this is the perfect time where we can use “Format Painter” command.

Below steps will help you to use “Format Painter” command very effectively.

1. Select the data from where we want to copy the formatting. In our case select entire data from table 1. 

2. Now click on “Format Painter” option which is available in Home Tab under Clipboard group.

3. The selected data will now appear in rotating dash border. Also the mouse pointer will change its shape. A small brush icon is now added to the mouse pointer.

4. Now, select the data where we want to apply this formatting style. In our case select the entire data from table 2. As a result we can see the formatting style of table 1 is copied to table 2.

Note: If you want to copy same formatting style on multiple location, then just double click on the format painter command and then select the data on desired multiple locations. The same formatting style will be copied to multiple locations.

Now, you are very much clear with the concept of “Format Painter” command. Use this command while working on excel to save the time and efforts and become a smart worker!!!