Excel Format Painter: Copy Formatting Between Cells

The Format Painter feature in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets allows you to quickly and easily copy formatting from one cell, or a group of cells, to another area of a worksheet.

Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets Format Painter

In Excel and Sheets, the Format Painter feature is especially useful when you want to apply formatting in a worksheet to areas containing new data. When you use Format Painter instead of re-creating the formatting, your formatting will be uniform throughout your worksheets.

In Excel, the format copying options make it possible to copy the source formatting one or more times to one or more locations. These locations can be on the same worksheet, on another worksheet in the same workbook, or in a different workbook.

Multiple Copying With Format Painter

Open a blank workbook in Excel, enter the data shown in the above image, and follow these steps to apply the formatting of the data in column B to the data in columns C and D: 

1. Apply the formatting options you want to use to the source cells.

2. Highlight cells B4 to B8.

3. Go to Home.

4. Select Format Painter.

5. Hover the mouse pointer above a cell to display a paintbrush with a pointer. This indicates that Format Painter is activated.

6. Highlight cells C4 to D8.

7. The formatting options are copied to the new location, and Format Painter is turned off.

Double-Click Format Painter for Multiple Copying

An additional option (available only in Excel) is to double-click Format Painter. This keeps Format Painter turned on after selecting one or more destination cells. This option makes it easy to copy formatting to multiple non-adjacent cells located either on the same worksheet or on different worksheets or workbooks.

To copy formatting to non-adjacent groups of cells in Google Sheets, repeat the steps above for copying formatting to a second worksheet area. 

Turn Off the Format Painter in Excel

There are two methods to turn off Format Painter when it is in multiple copy mode in Excel:

• Press ESC.
• Select Format Painter.

Keyboard Shortcut for Excel's Format Painter

A simple, two key shortcut doesn't exist for Excel's Format Painter. However, the following key combinations can be used to mimic Format Painter. These keys use the paste options found in the Paste Special dialog box.

1. Press Ctrl+C to copy the contents of the source cells, including data and applied formatting. The source cells are surrounded by a dotted line.

2. Highlight the destination cell or adjacent cells.

3. Press Ctr+Alt+V to open Paste Special options.

4. Press T+Enter (or select Formats under Paste) to paste the applied formatting to the destination cells.

As long as the dotted line appears around the source cells, the cell formatting can be pasted multiple times. To paste the formatting multiple times, repeat steps 2 to 4 above.

Create a Macro

If you frequently use Format Painter, an easy way to apply it using the keyboard is to create a macro. Open the Macro Recorder, use the keyboard shortcuts, and assign a shortcut key combination that activates the macro.

Google Sheets Paint Format

The Google Sheets Paint Format option copies the source formatting to only one destination at a time. In Google Sheets, the source formatting can be copied to areas of the same worksheet or to different worksheets in the same file. It cannot copy the formatting between files.

Open a blank Sheets workbook, copy the data from the original spreadsheet above, and follow these steps to copy the formatting from cells B4:B8 to cells C4:D8:

1. Apply the formatting options to the source cells.

2. Highlight cells B4 to B8.

3. Select Paint Format (it looks like a paint roller).

4. Highlight the destination cells C4 to D8.

5. The formatting used on the cells in column B is copied to the cells in columns C and D. Then, Paint Format is turned off.

Multiple Copying with Paint Format

Paint Format in Google Sheets is limited to copying formatting to only one destination at a time

To copy formatting to non-adjacent groups of cells in Google Sheets, repeat the steps above for copying formatting to a second worksheet area.