Quickly Copy Cell Formatting to Other Cells in Excel

How to copy all of the formatting of a single cell to other cells in the spreadsheet without having to re-apply each formatting element separately.  This will save you a lot of time when formatting spreadsheets.

Steps to Quickly Copy Cell Formatting to Other Cells

1. Select the cell that contains the formatting that you want to replicate:
   
2. On the Home tab click the Format Painter button on the left side of the menu.
   
3. Then, simply click the cell that you want to also have that formatting.
   
4. To add the formatting to multiple cells at once, follow steps 1 and 2 and then click, hold, and drag the mouse to select multiple cells at once.
   
5. When you let go of the mouse button the format will be applied to all of the cells that you selected.
   

You have now completed in just a few seconds what would have taken you minutes to do by hand, especially with large lists.

Notes

If you mess-up, you can always hit Ctrl + Z to undo any unwanted changes.

If you need to remove all cell formatting, follow this tutorial for quickly removing all cell formatting in Excel.

Download the spreadsheet that accompanies this tutorial to try it out yourself.