Did you know that the Format Painter is a copying tool within Microsoft® Office that allows you to add text formatting (fonts, colors, bold, italics, underline, alignment, etc.) and some graphics formatting (borders, fills), quickly to other parts of the document? You’ll find it in Word, Publisher, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access.

You do not have to redo everything again to apply the same formatting to another word, sentence, paragraph, cell, etc. in the same file.

You’ll want to use this tool for several reasons:

• It’s quick and will save you time.
• It enables you to format items in a consistent manner.
• It’s fun!

How to Use the Format Painter

1. Select part of the text or graphic that has the formatting that you want to copy.

NOTE:
– If you want to copy text formatting, select a portion of a paragraph.
– If you want to copy text and paragraph formatting, select an entire paragraph, including the paragraph mark.

 2. In Office 2003, on the toolbar, single click Format Painter.

     In later versions, on the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, single click Format Painter.

The mouse pointer changes to a paintbrush icon.

NOTE: Double-click the Format Painter button if you want to change the format of multiple selections in your document.

3. Select the text or graphic that you want to format.

To stop formatting, press the ESC key, or click the Format Painter once.

NOTES:
– For graphics, the Format Painter works best with drawing objects, such as AutoShapes. However, you can copy formatting from a picture (such as the picture’s border).
– The Format Painter cannot copy the font and font size on WordArt text.

Try it and let me know how you like it! You can leave a comment below.