The Format Painter feature can easily copy one cell’s formatting and then apply to other ranges in Excel easily.

Step 1: Select the cell with formatting.

Step 2: Click the Home > Format Painter button to change cursor to a paintbrush.

Note: If you want to apply the formatting to many ranges, please double click the Format Painter button.

Step 3: Then the cursor changes to a paintbrush, select the range you want to apply the cell’s formatting. Then the certain cell’s formatting is applied to selected range as below screen show shown:

Notes:

1. If you click the Format painter button once, the paintbrush becomes to normal cursor after selecting a range.
2. If you double click the Format Painter button, paintbrush won’t change to normal cursor no matter how many times you select ranges. To change the paintbrush to normal cursor, click the Format Painter button again.
3. This method may show date/time/percentage cells in incorrect category. In our example, we copy the formatting of Cell A1 and apply to date cells, finally the dates are shown as numbers. See screen shot above.

The Paste Special feature can also help us to format ranges same as a certain cell too. And you can do as follows:

Step 1: Select the cell with formatting, copy it with pressing the Ctrl + C keys simultaneously.

Step 2: Select the range you want to format same as the cell, right click and select Paste Special > Formatting in Excel 2010 and 2013. See below screen shot:

Note: In Excel 2007, clicking Paste Special from right-clicking menu will open the Paste Special dialog box. In the dialog box, check Formats option, and click OK button. See below screen shots:

Then you will see selected range is formatted with the same format as the specific cell at once as below screen shot shown:

Notes:

1. The Paste Special > Formatting can help you format many ranges same as the specific cell.
2. This method may show date cells, time cells, or other cells in incorrect category.

Both Format Painter feature and Paste Special feature are easy to copy formatting of given cell. However, you may notice in above screen shots, when we copy a text cell’s formatting to date cells, the dates are shown as numbers, and so do time cells, percentage cells, etc. Therefore, how to copy a text cell’ formatting to date cells with showing dates normally? Try Kutools for Excel’s Copy Cell Formatting utility.

Step 1: Select the certain cell with formatting.

Step 2: Click the Kutools > Format > Copy Cell Formatting.

Step 3: In the popping up Copy Cell Formatting dialog box, check the format options you want to copy, and click the OK button.

Step 4: Now a second Copy Cell Formatting dialog box pops up. Select the ranges you will paste the formatting to, and click OK button.

Note: Holding Ctrl keys, you can select multiple ranges.

Now you will see part of selected cell’s formatting is copied and applied to the selected range (or ranges). See both below screen shots:

Apply specified cell’s formatting to one range:

Apply specified cell’s formatting to multiple ranges:

Only copy formatting from cells to another

Copy values and formattings in cells