• PC World
• » Software
• » Office

One overlooked feature in Word and WordPerfect lets you copy the formatting (fonts, colors, boldface, and so on) of a selected area of text and apply it to other parts of the document. Word calls this feature Format Painter, while WordPerfect calls it QuickFormat. Whatever the name, it's a great way to save time when formatting a document. Here's how to use it:

Word 97 and 2000: Select a block of text formatted with the attributes you want to copy elsewhere. If you have no suitably formatted text, select and format some. Click the Format Painter icon on the toolbar--it looks like a paintbrush. (To apply the copied format to more than one block of text, double-click the icon.) Then drag the paintbrush over the text you want to format. Format Painter will also copy Paragraph formatting (such as indentation and line spacing). Alternatively, you can use any keyboard or other text-selection technique. If you double-clicked the Format Painter icon initially, click it again or press Esc to turn the feature off.

WordPerfect 8 and 9: To copy text formatting but not paragraph formatting, select a block of preformatted text. To copy the paragraph formatting, click anywhere in the paragraph. Click the QuickFormat icon on the toolbar--it looks like a paint roller. Then select a format option in the QuickFormat dialog box. WordPerfect will automatically choose the correct format option for the kind of text that you selected, but you can change it to another text format if you want to. Click OK.

QuickFormat can also copy the formatting used in tables. If you are working in a table, the options will appear in a dialog box. Drag the paint roller over the text you want to format if you're copying text attributes, or click in a new paragraph to copy paragraph formatting. Again, you can use any keyboard or other selection method to apply the formatting. When you finish, click the QuickFormat icon to turn the feature off.