Excel has a Format Painter tool that allows you to copy formatting from one cell or group of cells to another without copying their contents. Cell formatting includes everything from font size and color to borders, number formats, and Excel conditional formatting . This makes formatting cells in Excel much faster, instead of doing it manually again. Here's how to copy cell formatting in Excel.
How to copy cell format in Excel
Step 1:
You open the data table on Excel as usual, then click on the cell you want to copy the format . Next, we click on the Format Painter tool as shown below.
Step 2:
Excel will now place a dotted line around the selected cell or cells to let you know that something has been copied, and your cursor will change to a paintbrush icon.
Step 3:
Click the cell or range of data that you want to copy the previously selected cell format to. Once you paste the format into those new cells, the cursor will return to its original icon and the original cell format will no longer be copied.
If you need to copy formatting to multiple locations on the same worksheet, reselect the cell or cells with the formatting you want to copy, and double-click Format Painter. This way, every time you select the cell or cells where you want to paste the formatting, your cursor will remain the paintbrush icon, the copied cells will still be surrounded by a dotted line, and the Format Painter icon on the Home tab will still be selected.
To cancel the Format Painter tool, click Format Painter again or press Esc.
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