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How can you save time applying consistent formatting to your work in Microsoft
Office? Hi, I'm Dawn Bjork, The Software Pro.
I'm also a Microsoft Certified Trainer and a Certified Virtual Presenter.
In this training,
we'll look at how to use the Format Painter to duplicate formatting in Microsoft
Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Too often,
we waste time trying to manually duplicate the formatting of our
work. For instance,
here I have this cell that I could look up into the Ribbon tab and see that
it's bold and here's the size and figure out what the
color was. But instead we can use the Format Painter.
So much faster,
and then we get an exact duplicate of that formatting. Keeping in mind,
the Format Painter does not duplicate formulas, text,
any other content. It is simply duplicating the formatting.
We start by selecting the good stuff, that is,
what do you have that has the appearance you want to duplicate. Next,
go up to the Home tab and look for this paintbrush, click on it once.
And now your mouse has changed to a paintbrush.
All you have to do is click or click and drag,
and you have copied or duplicated that formatting.
It's that easy.
But what if you want to duplicate the formatting to more than one location?
That's also simple. Once again, we move to where we have the good stuff,
but this time we'll go to that paintbrush and double-click.
Once again, I have that paintbrush icon or cursor. I can click,
click and drag,
jump to different locations,
and I could continue applying that formatting. When you're done,
either hit the ESC key or click on that paintbrush icon again.
Next, we'll look at the Format Painter in Microsoft Word.
So here I have a heading and I want to change it a little bit.
I'm going to make that green,
I'll change the font, and make it a little bit bigger.
Rather than repeating those steps over and over again for the other headings,
this is where I can use the Format Painter again. So as we saw earlier,
we simply select the good stuff.
Now this can include the the paragraph Mark that we have here.
So if I show that now we have the opportunity to also
duplicate that paragraph formatting,
not just the text formatting. Next,
I'll go back to that format paintbrush, click it once,
and I can simply click at the beginning or if I want to use that
over and over again, as we saw, double-click,
click and drag, maybe just a portion of it. Doesn't have to be the entire line.
Or, maybe I do want to have it be the entire line of that text,
but that's the flexibility of the Format Painter. And here again,
I could hit the ESC key or click on the button again to cancel it.
But there's one other option for us as well. In Microsoft Word,
we have keyboard shortcuts. So I select this text again.
You can see those shortcuts when you hover over the Format Painter icon.
These are CTRL + SHIFT + C to copy formatting,and then
CTRL + SHIFT + V to paste the formatting. Now,
if these seem familiar,
it's because CTRL + C is our copy shortcut and CTRL + V
as our paste shortcut. Let's try these. With this selected,
I'll simply do CTRL + SHIFT + C.
We don't really get any type of information or feedback that this has happened.
Next, I'll select this other heading and CTRL + SHIFT + V.
So if you prefer keyboard shortcuts, this is another option. Now,
although Excel doesn't support these keyboard shortcuts,
they will work in many other Microsoft applications, including PowerPoint,
Outlook, and OneNote.
Another cool feature of the Format Painter is you can paste formatting between
documents.
So here I have two documents and I'd like the formatting from the first one to
be copied over to the second one. As we saw before, we select the good stuff,
that is what we want to duplicate.
And I'll go to that paintbrush and double-click.
I could also use those keyboard shortcuts. Now I've got my paintbrush,
but I need to come into and actually select this document so it is the active
document, and I'll click and drag over that.
I can do that for my other paragraphs as well.
That is simply click and drag and continue that
process.
So the Format Painter doesn't have to be just within one document or one
worksheet.
You can use this to duplicate formatting across files. Now,
even though the Format Painter is a handy feature in Word,
it's really not the best choice for a longer documents.
If you want to easily duplicate and even update formatting and multiple page
files work with the styles feature instead.
Let's wrap up our look at the Format Painter by learning how to duplicate
formatting for images or graphics. I've selected this image.
And I also see the contextual Picture Format ribbon tab
from here. I'm going to apply a picture style, just the soft edge oval.
And we could further modify it under Picture Effects here,
I'll go to Bevel and give that a rounded edge.
There could be other properties as well. Now this is just formatting,
this is not the sizing of it.
But if I want to duplicate the formatting for this picture to the other picture,
as we saw before, we go to the Format Painter,
which is under Home. Now, PowerPoint also supports those keyboard shortcuts.
I'll select the paintbrush and select the other image.
And it's that easy. How much time would this save?
The Format Painter also works for graphics for shapes.
I already have formatting applied to the shape,
but I'd like to duplicate that for this one.
Let's try that keyboard shortcut that was CTRL + SHIFT + C,
select the second image or destination or shape,
CTRL + SHIFT + B. It's that easy and what a time saver!
Now you've seen how to save time and effort by using the Format Painter to
duplicate formatting in Microsoft Office.
For more tips on being productive with Microsoft Office or to sign up for my
tips newsletter, visit TheSoftwarePro.com/Office.
If this training was helpful,
please like this video and subscribe to this channel. This is Dawn Bjork,
The Software Pro. Thanks for watching.
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