| Anyone who has ever used the Format Painter in Microsoft Office will instantly recognize FileMaker's own Format Painter, which works identically. The Format Painter lets you apply nearly all the attributes of a text field or graphic object to other text fields or graphic objects. You cannot, however, apply text attributes to objects and vice versa. To use the Format Painter 1. | Make sure you're in Layout mode ( in Windows,  on the Mac), then select the field or object whose formatting you want to use (the source field) (A, Figure 13.11).
Figure 13.11. Select the field whose formatting you want to use (A), click the icon to activate the Format Painter (B), and click the field you want formatted. Click and drag to format several fields at once (C). 
| 2. | Click the Format Painter icon, which is part of the Standard toolbar, to activate the Format Painter (B, Figure 13.11).
| 3. | Click the field or object to which you want to apply the formatting (the target field). Click and drag if you want to select several fields to format simultaneously (C, Figure 13.11). Release the cursor and the formatting is applied (Figure 13.12).
Figure 13.12. After using the Format Painter, the formatting of the Category label field has been applied to the Item, Model, and Serial Number label fields. 
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 Tips
If you change your mind midway through the process, press  to deactivate the Format Painter. The Format Painter's brush-shaped cursor returns to the customary arrow shape. Having the Text Formatting toolbar visible (View > Toolbars > Text Formatting) lets you see which text attributes are currently selected. This makes it much easier to know if you've actually selected the source field. The Format Painter uses the same steps to apply attributes from one object to another (Figure 13.13). Figure 13.13. Formatting objects with the Format Painter works just as it does for formatting text fields. Here, the right circle's formatting has been applied to the left circle.  The Format Painter also can apply attributes to fields or objects in any other open database. Arrange the databases so that both windows are visible, then click the field or object whose formatting you want to use, click the Format Painter icon, and click the other database's field or object (Figure 13.14). Figure 13.14. By arranging two databases so that both windows are visible, the Format Painter can apply attributes from one to the other.  While the Format Painter is a great way to apply multiple text attributes, it's limited to attributes available in the Text Formatting toolbar. For applying attributes not found in the toolbar, such as Strikeouts, Indents, and Tabs, see Setting multiple text attributes on the next page.
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