Microsoft Excel: Copy Formatting To A New Range

Problem: You have several similar report sections on a spreadsheet. Once you get the first report nicely formatted, you would like to copy the format to the other reports. See Fig. 1139.

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Strategy: Use Paste Special Formats to copy just the formats from one range to another.

1) Select cells A1:E6. From the menu, select Edit – Copy.

2) Select the upper left corner of the next section. With the cell pointer in A8, select Edit – Paste Special – Formats, as shown in Fig. 1140.

3) Move the cell pointer to A15. Repeat the Edit – Paste Special – Formats command to format the Cost section of the report. Repeat for any additional sections.

Result: As shown in Fig. 1141, the cell formats will be copied, but not their values or formulas.

Summary: After you’ve taken the time to nicely format one range, you can copy the formatting to other ranges by using the Paste Special Formats command.

Commands Discussed: Edit – Paste Special Formats

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