Excel – MS Excel: How to use format painter with just the keyboard

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If you want to paste a format, you can copy and use the keyboard shortcut to paste special (Ctrl + Alt + V). MS Excel also has a useful format painter tool. You can select it using a keyboard shortcut (Using the hotkeys for the ribbon tools and then hitting the keys F, P).

However, what happens next is that the moment you move to a different cell using the arrow keys, it gets copied to that cell. With a mouse you can select any cell you want, but obviously with a keyboard it's going to be pasted onto one of the neighbouring cells:

How do I do this properly with just the keyboard? (I'm using Excel 2016)

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Update (November 2020): This Method does not work in the current version of Excel, as it will copy both format and content of the origin cell. Unless you are formatting empty cells, I recommend using the method of WireGuy instead: Use F5 or Ctrl+G to navigate to the target cell.

Original Answer: It is quite cumbersome, but after you undo (Ctrl + z) formatting the neighbouring cell, you can move around the cursor with the keyboard arrows and press enter finally to paint the correct cell.

If you hold down shift while navigating (before pressing enter) you can paint multiple (adjacent) cells at once.

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Excel – How to unselect Excel Cell using Keyboard Shortcut

By using the SHIFT and/or the CTRL keys you can select non-contiguous ranges. However, if you select a cell or area by mistake, there is no built in way to remove that from the selection without losing the entire selection and having to start over. This page describes to VBA procedures, UnSelectActiveCell and UnSelectCurrentArea that will remove the Active Cell or the Area containing the Active Cell from the current selection. All other cells in the Selection will remain selected.

Your best bet would be to add these to your Personal Macro workbook so that they are available to all open workbooks in Excel.

This procedure will remove the Active Cell from the Selection.

Sub UnSelectActiveCell()
    Dim R As Range
    Dim RR As Range
    For Each R In Selection.Cells
        If StrComp(R.Address, ActiveCell.Address, vbBinaryCompare) <> 0 Then
            If RR Is Nothing Then
                Set RR = R
            Else
                Set RR = Application.Union(RR, R)
            End If
        End If
    Next R
    If Not RR Is Nothing Then
        RR.Select
    End If
End Sub

This procedure will remove the Area containing the Active Cell from the Selection.

Sub UnSelectCurrentArea()
    Dim Area As Range
    Dim RR As Range

    For Each Area In Selection.Areas
        If Application.Intersect(Area, ActiveCell) Is Nothing Then
            If RR Is Nothing Then
                Set RR = Area
            Else
                Set RR = Application.Union(RR, Area)
            End If
        End If
    Next Area
    If Not RR Is Nothing Then
        RR.Select
    End If
End Sub

Excel – How to fix a long delay in Excel 2016

Change your default printer to a document printer (like XPS). Most inexplicable Office hangs are because Office insists on being in continuous communication with its printer.

You can also attempt the answers that were provided in the comments section--disabling hardware acceleration can help.

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Excel – How to unselect Excel Cell using Keyboard Shortcut

Excel – How to fix a long delay in Excel 2016

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