Format Painter Shortcut

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
You can't activate it with a built-in shortcut. And here is the really bad
You can't even activate it programmatically. The format painter
performs something like "CopySpecial" by copying only formats. VBA kowns
only a Copy method, which does not provide a possibility to mimic what the
format painter does.

The usual way to provide keyboard-only operation is to perform a normal copy
(Ctrl+C) and then assign a keyboard shortcut to a macro which provides the
Paste Special functionality. You can find an example here:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/paste.htm#painter

I don't like this approach since it's too easy to accidentally perform a
normal paste instead of pasting only formats, but other people may find it
useful.

Cheers,

Joerg Mochikun
 
By "keyboard shortcut", I assume you want to perform this using the
keyboard rather than the mouse. Here are the keystrokes you can use,
although I don't know how "short" you'll consider it.

First, highlight the cell(s) whose format you want to copy, then do
Ctrl+C for copy. Then highlight the cell(s) to which you want to copy
the format and do the following "shortcut" keystrokes:

Alt+E, S, t, Enter

(Ignore the dialog boxes that come up on screen as you do this.)
 
I tried this shortcut in my document. It is cool shortcut. Thanks for your valuable tip.
 
If you add the format painter to the quick access toolbar in excel 2007, you can utilize alt+(number) to access it depending on what else you have in that toolbar.

I have 4 items up there, with the paintbrush in spot 4.

Alt+4 gives me the paintbrush on the current selection.

Then I navigate to the range I want to apply it to (keyboard arrows or mouse if it is not adjacent)

Hope that helps.

Regards -
 
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