Using Format Painter in Word 2010

One of the great unsung heroes of the workplace is the person who always gets the formatting right in their Microsoft Word documents. No one really notices if you work hard to make your document sections consistent, only if you don't!

Thankfully, with Office 2010, formatting related sections the same way doesn't have to be so much work. Format Painter makes this task simple and quick.

Just format one section the way you want it, and then select it. Now click the Format Painter button on the Home tab. (If you'll be applying the format to multiple sections of your document, double click it instead and it will stay active until you click the button again or start another task.)

Now simply select (or paint, if you prefer) the text where you want to apply this formatting.

Suzanne

Comments

• Anonymous
  June 29, 2010
  You can also use Ctrl-Shift-C to copy the formatting and Ctrl-Shift-V to paste. I find this easier than the format painter because you can do other editing between when you copy and past (paint) the format.

• Anonymous
  September 23, 2012
  thanks for the good tip it was very helpful

• Anonymous
  February 11, 2013
  Henry, your tip was extremely helpful, thanks! It works when I have the page "split" and want to copy format from one part of a long document to another. It also works between separate documents.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2013
  its difficult for me to use format painter,,wiill any one help me

• Anonymous
  November 21, 2013
  My Format painter will not allow me to double click so I can "paint" multiple selections...any hel here would be useful as this did work for me before. I have been able to do this in the past but somehow on my work PC it will no longer allow me to double click on the format painter icon.