Format Painter
- by Bogo Giertler
One of the best, hidden gems of Microsoft Office is Format Painter. Its shy brush icon is strategically placed on every Word toolbar just after the Undo and Redo icons, and is rarely noticed by the users. If a document you are working on will require repetitive formatting (i.e. section headers, italics on quotations, block quotes) and you dread the monotonous series of clicks to get it all done, the Format Painter is an answer. To learn about it, read more.
Using Format Painter is trivial. After setting up one chunk of document with the given formatting, just place a cursor on it (or on the entire paragraph or cell, if you wish to copy their respective styles as well) and click on the brush. Now, whatever text you select, it will receive the formatting of the text you selected. If you click on a single word, a single word will be formatted.
Want to format more then one object? No problem, just click the brush twice after and the application will keep on changing formatting of selected objects, until Escape button is pressed.
 This post is for informational purposes only. The technologies and services discussed are not officially endorsed or supported by the Colby College Information Technology Services department. Colby account holders should review the College’s Information and Data Security Policy and Best Practices guidelines, especially as they pertain to the handling of sensitive data. |
