Excel - paste *only* number formatting

When working with Excel, you may often need to copy and paste data from one cell to another. However, sometimes you only want to copy the number formatting and not the actual values or formulas. In this article, we will show you how to paste only the number formatting in Excel.

Before we begin, it's important to note that the steps may vary slightly depending on the version of Excel you are using. The instructions provided here are for Excel 2016.

Step 1: Copy the cell with the desired number formatting

First, select the cell that contains the number formatting you want to copy. You can do this by clicking on the cell with your mouse.

Next, press Ctrl+C on your keyboard to copy the cell. Alternatively, you can right-click on the cell and select "Copy" from the context menu.

Step 2: Paste the number formatting

Now, select the cell or range of cells where you want to apply the number formatting. Again, you can do this by clicking on the cell or dragging your mouse to select a range of cells.

Next, right-click on the selected cell(s) and choose "Paste Special" from the context menu.

A dialog box will appear. In this dialog box, select the "Number Formats" option and click on the "OK" button.

Excel will now paste only the number formatting from the copied cell to the selected cell(s). The values and formulas in the selected cells will remain unchanged.

Step 3: Verify the number formatting

To ensure that the number formatting has been applied correctly, you can check the selected cell(s) to see if they now have the desired format. If the formatting is not as expected, you can repeat the process to paste the number formatting again.

It's worth mentioning that when you paste number formatting, it will only apply the formatting and not any other formatting properties such as font styles, borders, or cell colors. If you want to copy all formatting properties, you can use the "Paste Special" option and select "All" instead of "Number Formats".

That's it! You have successfully learned how to paste only the number formatting in Excel. This can be particularly useful when you want to quickly apply the same formatting to multiple cells without changing the values or formulas.

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