Windows 10: Format Painter no longer working in Microsoft Excel for Mac

I have several cells that are formatted with a specific background color in Microsoft Excel for Mac 2019. I always used to be able to select a cell and then double click on format painter and then click on other cells and the format (background color, font size etc.) of the original cell would be copied to the cells I clicked on . But for the past 6 months of so that has stopped . Now when I click on other cells after having double clicked (or single-clicked) on format painter nothing happens. How to fix this?

:)

 

Odd behaviour of Format Painter

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I misunderstood what you had said about pasting - I guess I read the first paragraph and then lept to the document without reading the rest.

Anyway ...

I wrote two short passages of text. One in Arial italic 11pt and the other in Berlin Sans FB Bold 14pt.

Before:





I then 'Format Painted' the Arial text onto a part of the Berlin Sans text and Format Painter worked as expected.

After:





Will now try your suggestion which replicates what I was doing but avoiding the Notepad step.

Art

UPDATE:

Well, I went to the web souce and copied some text then pasted it into my docuement using the 'Paste Special', 'Paste as Unformatted Text' and I got the copied tect from the web in the same font as the line above (as expected since Word hadn't changed the formatting).

I then took two different font styles from further up the document to test using Format Painter.

The first worked as expected, keeping the font bold but changing the text from Berin Sans FB 14pt Bold to Arial 12pt bold.

The second didn't work as expected. The font style selected for copying was Arial 24pt normal but using Format Painter it changed the style from Berin Sans FB 14pt Bold to Arial 12pt bold - i.e. keeping the bold text option/flag (whatever).





Something very odd going on and, as you intimated, some sort of 'formatting carry-over' fromNotepad.

Most curious.

Art

 

Odd behaviour of Format Painter

Hi folks.

I'm getting some very odd behaviour with Format Painter in Word 2016. First of all, I know how format painter works, I have been using it for years!

However, on this new installation of both Windows 10 Pro (ver 2004) and MS Office Pro Plus 2016 Version 2005 (Build 12827.203336) I'm getting a very curious and unexplainable effect.

I'm compiling a document which has been pulled from webpages. After putting the copied text through Notepad (to get rid of any embedded formatting), the text is pasted into Word.

Each newly-pasted piece of text needs to be formatted the same as the previous section - and this where the problem arises.

To demonstrate. Here is the document after a new piece of text has been pasted, but not formatted.





So, I highlight the title ("2. Dirt and Grime"), click on 'Format Painter' and then swipe (for want of a better word) across the text that needs re-formatting ("3. Blocking Views") and this is what I get ...





Any ideas (a) what is going on and (b) how to fix it??

Art

 

Odd behaviour of Format Painter

I would strongly suggest using styles, instead of copy formatting. At least for headings and text body. Give your styles shortcuts (I have ctrl + numbers for headings, and Ctrl+n is default for normal).

You'll be much faster, and layout will be as expected. Format painter is for the parts that are different than defined styles (you play with part of the text .. then copy the formatting)

As you see, Notepad is not good enough for clearing the formatting from text.