Section 4.7. Fast Formatting with Format Painter

4.7. Fast Formatting with Format Painter

Whether it's a special heading or a paragraph of text, formatting a paragraph just the way you want it is a lot of work. Once you have the margins, indents, and tabs in place, and you've got the font style and size set, you've invested a chunk of time in the project. Fortunately, you can capitalize on that investment. The Format Painter works like magic. You can use it to copy the formatting of a word, heading, or paragraph onto something else. You don't have to worry about any of the formatting details. You don't even need to know how something is formatted, so long as you like the way it looks.

Here's how it works:

1. Select the character or paragraph with the formatting that you want to copy .

   You can copy and paint either the character or the paragraph formatting. If you want to copy just text formatting (font, size, text color , and so on), select a few letters or a word with that formatting, not the whole paragraph. Selecting an entire paragraph, complete with the paragraph mark at the end, copies both the character formatting and the paragraph formatting. If you don't select anything, the Format Painter uses the formatting from the current paragraph, so to copy paragraph formatting alone (for example, tabs and indents), just click anywhere in the paragraph.

2. Go to Home Clipboard and click the Format Painter button, or just press Alt+H, FP .

   Your cursor acquires a tiny paintbrush icon. If you have only one quick change to make, just click the Format Painter once. However, if you want to copy the same formatting to several different locations, double-click the Format Painter. When you double-click, the button stays locked down, indicating that it will stay on and let you paint multiple times until you're ready to stop.

3. Drag the Format Painter over the text or paragraph that you want to change .

   Here's the fun part. Like magic, your selection takes on all the formatting that you copied . If you double-clicked for multiple format painting, you can keep on dragging over text or clicking paragraphs. When you're through, hit Esc. The Format Painter button pops back up, and your cursor changes back to its normal I-beam appearance.