Format painter is one of the most helpful buttons/commands within the Microsoft Office suite, and probably the least commonly used! With Format Painter, you only have to do the job once, instead of reinventing the wheel for each bulleted list, title or caption you create.
- Making One Copy -
Let's say that you're working in Word and have created a bulleted list on the first page that is just perfect. The indent, font, font size and color are just right. Later on, you add a few more pages and another bulleted list near the end of the document. You want to have the new list look exactly the same, but, you can't remember which font you used or what size it is. Here's what you do:
1: Highlight the bulleted list on page number one.
2: Click on the Format Painter button to memorize that format. Once you've clicked on the Format Painter button, a paintbrush will attach itself to your cursor.
3: Go to the next bulleted list (with the paintbrush attached to your cursor) and highlight it.
Voila! The formatting from the old bulleted list is now applied to the new bulleted list and your cursor is returned to normal.
- Making Two (or More) Copies -
This is great for one application (one new bulleted list). But what if you have seven of them within the document? Easy ... use double-click to make the Format Painter stick on until you're done using it.
1: Highlight the bulleted list on page number one.
2: Double-click on the Format Painter button to force it to stick on. The paintbrush will again attach itself to your cursor.
3: Go to the next bulleted list (with the paintbrush attached to your cursor) and highlight it. The formatting will be applied, but your cursor will not return to normal. The Format Painter remains on.
4: Now find the next occurence, and highlight it. Formatting will be applied again. Repeat until you have formatted all bulleted lists in your document.
5: To turn the Format Painter off, click once on the Format Painter button or press Esc on your keyboard.
- How to Really Save Time -
This applies to more than just bullets -- titles, headers, image captions and even paragraphs can be 'format painted' using exactly the same steps. This is a real time-saver, especially if you follow my general advice about typing your content first. Once the content is typed into paragraphs, you can format the first page as you like it, then use the Format Painter to simply apply this format to the remainder of the document.
And it works exactly the same in PowerPoint or Excel.
Enjoy your new-found free time!