How to quickly format text in MS Word using format painter

Posted on January 29, 2009 at 5:10 am

When writing documents in MS Word we often find it necessary to use a text format consisting of several format combinations. These could be a header format, for example, with bold, underline and italic style. Sure you can apply these formats manually but without a shortcut you will be pressing many buttons to apply those formats:

You might think that that is not too bad; just 3 clicks of a mouse to access the format you want. But what if there are more formatting steps needed like font type, size, alignment and color? That could be a hassle if you need to apply the same format to multiple parts of the document. There will be just too many buttons to click!

To solve this problem, MS Word has provided us with the format painter button wherein the first click to it will copy the format of the chosen text and then the next click will allow you to apply the format to other parts of the document. Here is how to use it:

Step 1: Click the part of the text where you want to copy the format from:

In the example above I clicked the text with the bold, italic, underlined and colored red style. I will use this as the base format.

Step 2: To tell Word that you want to use this format, click the format painter button:

This will be the format that will be “painted” to the other parts of the document. You should see your mouse icon change to a brush. A single click to the button will let you paint to a single text while a double click will let you apply the format to multiple text. (Just click the button again to exit the paint mode.)

Step 3: Choose the text in the document where you want to “paint” the format. In the example below I clicked “pleasure” and it quickly applied the formatting to it:

That’s it! Now you can reuse your formatting without having to click each individual formatting buttons. A real time saver! It also gives you more formatting quality since you will be sure that the format you use is the same as your source.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

» Filed Under MS Office Tips

Comments

One Response to “How to quickly format text in MS Word using format painter”

beri said on : January 29th, 2009 at 7:43 am

Bs”d

You can use also shortcut mark the format that you want to copy with Shift+Ctrl+C and then mark the text to paste the new with Shift+Ctrl+v