How to Use Format Painter in PowerPoint?

PowerPoint has a useful tool called Format Painter that allows you to copy character formatting from one place to another. You make changes to one part of the word and then simply activate Format Painter and apply the same formatting to any other word or text in the same or different slide.

How to use Format Painter in PowerPoint and what are the benefits of this formatting tool? In this article, we will describe the simple steps to use Format Painter in PowerPoint. It makes the formatting more convenient and smoother for the users.

What is Format Painter in PowerPoint?

PowerPoint offers a variety of tools and features that can help you maintain consistent formatting and design across all slides in a presentation. Format Painter can copy formatting from one object to another, including font style, color, size, and other design elements.

For a longer presentation with many slides, you just have to design one object and once completed, simply use the Format Painter to apply the same formatting to other objects of your choice.

How to Use Format Painter?

Regular PowerPoint may need to use Format Painter more often while making presentations. Effective use of such tools can speed up daily tasks. Let’s say we want a specific word to have special color, font and size.

In this example, we want to make “PowerPoint” more prominent with a different color and style. After editing this term, you want to apply the same formatting and styling to multiple other important words in the slides.

Manually changing every word is not easy, but with Format Painter, we just select the one edited word or object and then simply apply that formatting to all desired objects or words. You don’t need to be confused about all this. Follow these simple steps on how to use Format Painter in PowerPoint.

Step 1: Format your Target Word

Open your PowerPoint presentation and navigate to the slide where you have the target object. In our example, we will edit the “PowerPoint” term. Change its color, size, and style.

We changed its color and size and made it italic. Now, we will want to apply the same formatting to few other terms, without doing all these steps again.

Step 2: Select Format Painter

Once you have edited the object, go to Home tab and then double click Paint icon. It will activate the Format Painter in sticky mode.

Single click will activate the Format Painter for a single object. Double click allows you to use this tool in sticky mode, meaning that you can apply to multiple objects at the same time.

Step 3: Apply Formatting to Other Objects

Once Format Painter is selected in sticky mode, the pointer will change into a brush whenever you hover over the slide.

Now, go to any slide, click a single word to apply formatting instantly, or even select an entire heading or paragraph.

As you can see, targeted words have the same color, style and size of the source object. You can keep selecting multiple objects and Format Painter will instantly apply the source formatting.

Step 4: Exit Format Painter

Once you have made all changes, press the Escape button on your keyboard or click the Format Painter icon again to exit the tool.

Issue: Format Painter does not stick

While using the tool, you may note that after applying changes to each object, you have to select the Format Painter tool repeatedly. This actually happens when you choose the tool with a single click.

A single click on the Format Painter icon will activate it for a single object, and it will exit the painter mode automatically. If you want to make it sticky, double-click the Format Painter mode, and it will allow you to apply source formatting to multiple target objects.

Possible Use Cases of Format Painter

We have explained the steps for using the format painter for text only. Users can copy the formatting of any target object, let’s say images. If an image has a specific border, sizing, and shadow, you can use Format Painter to apply the same styling to other images in your slides.

Once you have activated Format Painter in sticky mode, you can even jump to another presentation and apply the source formatting to target objects in any other presentation. For this to work, open different presentations at the same time and use Format Painter from one presentation to another.

Benefits of Format Painter

With the effective use of any formatting and designing tool in PowerPoint, you can easily elevate your PowerPoint experience. Here are some common benefits of learning how to use Format Painter in PowerPoint:

• Saves time by enabling the copy-paste feature for formatting and styling of objects
• Allows you to maintain consistency throughout the slides in a presentation
• Makes your workflow smoother and more efficient
• Helps with professional presentations and allows you to create visually appealing slides

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Conclusion

Twistly can reduce the manual editing and formatting for PowerPoint presentations. Learn how to use Format Painter in PowerPoint or simply let AI do the hard work for you. With Twistly, all you have to do is provide the topic and select the theme for the presentation, and AI does the rest.

No manual formatting, designing, or editing is required, and it works inside PowerPoint, so you won’t be changing tabs. Bring the power of AI to your presentations and enjoy a free trial version of custom ChatGPT for PowerPoint.