Copying Character Formatting

Often it is beneficial to copy character formatting from one place in your document to another. The easiest way to do this is to define character styles, as discussed in other WordTips. If, however, you want to quickly copy character formatting without using styles, Word also provides a fast way for doing this using the Format Painter:

1. Select the characters whose formatting you want to copy.
2. In the Home tab of the ribbon look in the Clipboard group. Click on the Format Painter control to copy the format.
3. Click and drag the mouse pointer over the text to which you want the formatting applied.

There is one thing to understand about using the Format Painter. If, in step 1, you select multiple characters, then if you just click in a word in step 3, the formatting will be applied to the entire word in which you clicked. If you want to apply it just to a few characters, then you'll need to use the mouse to select those characters in step 3.

You can also copy the same format repeatedly by double clicking the Format Painter tool in step 2. You will then be able to apply the same formatting until you turn off format painting by clicking on the tool one more time or by hitting the Esc key.

Word also provides shortcut keys to quickly paste character formatting. Simply select the text whose formatting you want to copy, then press Shift+Ctrl+C. This copies the formatting to the Clipboard. Then, select the characters you want to format, and press Shift+Ctrl+V.

These shortcuts work in most versions of Word. However, if you are using Word in Microsoft 365, these shortcuts will not work. Instead, you'll need to use Alt+Ctrl+C to copy formatting and Alt+Ctrl+V to paste formatting. Microsoft made this change in the first half of 2023 because they wanted to use Shift+Ctrl+V to paste text only, without any formatting on the text being pasted. You can find information about this switch in shortcut keys here:

https://insider.microsoft365.com/he-il/blog/paste-text-only-shortcut-in-word

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (8617) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Copying Character Formatting.