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Format Cells Dialog

The Format Cells dialog has six tabs, each with several characteristics that you can set.

Number tab:  Pick a number format and set its options, or create a custom format.	Alignment tab: Controls horizontal and vertical alignment. Text control choices: Wrap text, Shrink to fit (the cell), Merge cells, plus Orientation, which rotates text.
Font tab: Pick a font, font style, font size, font color, underline style, a few effects.	Border tab: Set a border for any combination of edges of your selected cells plus diagonals.
Fill tab: Background colors and patterns and special effects with gradients.	Protection tab: Keep certain cells from being changed by someone using your sheet or even hide parts of the sheet.

Dialog choices apply to selection: Your choices in this dialog apply to the selected cell(s) unless you have selected only part of the contents of a cell. Some formats, like Borders and Alignment, will apply only to the whole cell.

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Copy Formatting

To copy formatting you can use one of the Paste Options, the Format Painter, AutoFill, or the Paste Special dialog.

Paste Options:
When you click the Paste button's arrow (on the ribbon), a list of options appears.
 
Excel 2010, 2013, 2016: The choices are icons, not text. Hover over an icon and a screen tip will tell you what it will do. Most icons make sense once you know what they are for.

Paste Options button:
If you just click the Paste button itself or use the key combo CTRL + V to paste, the Paste Options button appears near what you pasted. Hover over it and click the down arrow to see the options.

So you can choose before you paste or afterwards. Hurrah for flexibility!

Format Painter:

The Format Painter button works much as it does in Word. The biggest difference is that Excel's Format Painter works only on the cell as a whole. You cannot use it on just part of the text in a cell. In fact, it is grayed out when you are in Edit mode.

When you click the button, the pointer changes to its Format Painter shape. Click on a cell or drag across several cells to apply the copied formatting. The pointer then returns to its Select shape.

To use Format Painter to format several cells that are not next to each other, double-click the Format Painter button. The pointer will remain in its Format Painter shape until you click the button again or press the ESC key.

Excel picks from Multiple Formats: If a cell contains more than one format for text, such as different font sizes or colors, Format Painter will copy only the first formatting that it finds. This can be very surprising and disappointing!

AutoFill:

You can use Excel's AutoFill feature to copy formatting into multiple cells, while leaving the data in the cells alone.

AutoFill Options: After you drag the Fill handle to copy cells, the AutoFill Options button appears near the bottom right of the cells. Click its arrow to open the list of choices. You will see various choices depending on what you were copying, but you should always see Fill Formatting Only and Fill Without Formatting.

Right Drag Menu: If you drag the AutoFill handle with the right mouse button, a menu automatically appears with the same choices, including  Fill Formats.

Paste Special:

The Paste Special dialog (Home tab > Paste >Paste Special… ) allows you to choose how much about a copied cell you wish to paste. You can choose All and paste the entire cell with all of its formatting.

Or choose one of the Paste options and paste just that characteristic.

Of special interest for this project is the choice to paste just the Formats. You can even paste everything except the borders. This is very useful when some rows have borders and some don't.

If you choose one of the Operations, the operation is performed on the pasted contents when you paste.

Pasting multiple cells with Skip blanks checked leaves the data you are pasting over in place if what you are pasting has a blank cell in that position.

Transpose will paste columns as rows and rows as columns, which can be quite useful and certainly saves a lot of time.

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Clear Formats

After all this formatting, what do you do if you want to just start over? How can you get rid of all these formats, called clearing formats?

Ribbon: On the Home tab, the Clear button opens a list of choices, including Clear Formats, which returns all the fonts to the default Normal font, removes fills and borders, and splits merged cells. It does not change row and column sizes. Data that was lost in a merge is not restored.

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