Find and Replace Formatting in Excel

Excel Bad Habit #10: Formatting Individual Cells Instead of Several at Once

If you want to change all cells that have the same formatting quickly, you can use the Find and Replace feature in Excel to do it all at once instead of one cell at a time.

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Fins and Repalce Format before and after

That's right, many people don't realize that Find and Replace isn't just for values. You can replace formatting as well.

To make the process as quick as possible, start by changing just one cell to appear the way you want it. That way you can point to it as an example when you're replacing formats.

Type Ctrl + H to bring up the Find and Replace window. Select the Options button.

Find and replace
Ctrl + H

You'll see Format buttons for both the Find and Replace fields. For the Find Format, select the option that says Choose Format From Cell.

Then select any cell that has the format you want replaced.

Select the cells

Repeat the process for the Replace format, choosing a cell with your desired formatting.

Selecting replacement formatting

When you hit the Replace All button, all of the cells will be reformatted simultaneously to match the format you selected, including fill color, font size and style, bold, italics, borders, and alignment.

If you want to replace the formatting for the entire workbook instead of just the selected worksheet, choose Workbook from the Within dropdown.

Select Workbook from Within Dropdown menu

I hope this helps you save tons of time! Questions? Leave a comment.

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