How to Use Format Painter in Excel?

We have the “Format Painter” tool in the Excel Home tab.  It helps to apply the same format (font style, color, font size, border style) from one cell to another cell/cells.  It is like copy paste formats only instead of data.

One of the best practices in creating a dashboard/report is to maintain consistency across visuals.

In the below example we have two cells with the text “Gross Sales” and “Net Sales”. 

Follow the below steps to apply the “Gross Sales” format to “Net Sales”:  

Step 1: Select cells “C6”.  Goto Home >> Click “Format Painter”. 

Step 2: Just click the cells “C7”, which we need to paste format.

Step 3: We have to double click “Format Painter” which allows applying the same format to many places. Eg: copy Cell “A1” format to the first row and first column of the below table.

Step 4: Select cell “A1”.  Goto Home >> Double Click “Format Painter”.  Click first row and first column.