[Solved: Format Painter!] Is there a way to 'paste' multiple formatting settings without changing the selected text in MS Word? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Like in the Home tab, the "Styles" seems like exactly what I need, but it applies the changes to the entire paragraph vs just the selected text.

Pic below of what I'm trying to do:

Just started nursing school (woo!!) and I'm trying to make review guides for my class. There are like 50 of those questions for every chapter, ~10 chapters for every unit exam, and a unit exam every couple of weeks. ...for the next two years. >_>

There are a metric FUCK TON of these questions, so I'm trying to make them as easy on the eyes as possible so that we can review them as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

Anywho, in the pic, question 3 is the format I'm shooting for - letter answers bolded, red, and caps; answer key tucked away with right side alignment, small, light grey, and italicized so we don't prematurely see the answer as we're scrolling.

Question 4 is how the text appears in the textbook, which makes it hard to scroll though them without seeing the answer prior to considering all the options, and seeing the answer early kinda sabotages actually learning the content.

The ideal study scenario being read the question, discuss which answer we think is right and why, check our answer against the grey text, and move on.

I know you can change formating with find and replace, but then the entire document is filled with sentences that end with things like "fractured bonE." so afaik the best approach is to just ctrl+click/drag to select the letters, then then click the bold/red/Aa and move on to the next one and repeat.

Any tips to automate this would be outstanding, since there will literally be thousands of these throughout the entire program.

Thank you!!

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[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The thing that comes to mind is "Format painter". It should be on the Home tab near the normal Paste.

Select the test that already has the format you want, then double click the format painter button.

Select each section you want to have that formatting. Because you double clicked the Format Painter, you can just do one after the other without having to click Format Painter each time. Click the format painter button again once you are done, or just hit escape.

This is the easiest to explain way that I can think of, but someone else might have another way too.

Edit: if you think you might want to change them all again later, it might be worth learning more about creating a style, applying that to each of your sections, then editing the format of the style.