Format Painter in Microsoft Word

Powerful Tool Allows Copy/Paste of Format Only

Sep 16, 2009
Joe Nowak

Format Painter Icon - Microsoft Corporation

While creating a document, a writer may have several unique formats. Using MS Word's format painter can make this task easier and more efficient.

When writing a document longer than a couple hundred words, most authors will find themselves using several different format layouts. Sub headings may be one point size larger, sans serif instead of serif, centered and underlined. Perhaps they want long quotes single spaced, indented a half inch from each margin, and italicized.

If an author manually changes the formats every time she creates a sub heading or enters a quote, she runs the risk of losing her train of thought. More than likely she will get the words down on paper (or in the word processing file) and edit and change formatting later. Manually performing these changes after everything is complete can also cause problems such as forgetting to change font size of a sub head or indent a quote.

Format Painter Command

Microsoft Word has a feature called Format Painter that allows a user to copy and paste formats much in the same way that text is copied and pasted. To use Format Painter follow these steps.

Start with the normal, default text formatting.
Select the first body of text to be formatted.
Make all formatting changes manually.
After the changes are made, click on the Format Painter tool. (It looks like a little, yellow-bristled paint brush. In Word 2007 it is located in the Home ribbon, near paste. In Word 2003 and earlier versions it’s to the immediate right of the Paste button on the Standard toolbar).
This temporarily transfers only the formatting to the clipboard.
The mouse pointer now appears as the standard I-beam configuration with a paint brush tagging along.
Move the mouse pointer to the beginning of the data (usually a paragraph) to be formatted.
Select the text by holding the left mouse button down and dragging over the text to be formatted.
Release the mouse button and all the formats have been pasted into the selected text.
The mouse pointer returns to the original default pointer.

Double Click Format Painter

The method listed above works well when all formatting is complete and the writer discovers she needs to format a sub head, quote or other section requiring special formatting only once. If the writer has written the entire document without formatting anything and has multiple sub heads, quotes, and specially formatted text, then she must use a slightly different method.

Start with the normal, default text formatting.
Select the first body of text to be formatted.
Make all formatting changes manually.
After the changes are made, double click on the Format Painter tool. The double click will keep the format in the clipboard until the command is given to clear it.
The user then selects each body of text she wishes to “paint.”
As she finishes selecting each text group, it is formatted appropriately.
Turn off the format pasting feature by clicking once (a third time) on the Format Painter button.

Selecting the Wrong Text by Accident

If a user inadvertently selects the wrong text and thus it is formatted incorrectly:

He must undo (Control+Z) the formatting.
This will empty the formatting from the clipboard. (It does not change any successfully modified formatting.)
Then he must start with step 4 above and continue on until finished with formatting.

Using the Format Painter provides a writer with several benefits.

It allows the writer to take care of business—writing—without worrying about how to center, bold, change line spacing, etc.
It speeds up the process of special formatting.
It reduces the likelihood of formatting errors.

Select Large Blocks of Text with Microsoft Word