Most teachers do a lot of word-processing. The Format Painter is a great time-saving tool that every teacher should know about.

Imagine you have spent time getting some text in a Word document looking just as you want it: you've centred and bolded it; increased its size; chosen a student-friendly font; adjusted the spacing before and after it; and even added a cool border. There is no way that the students are going to miss it! And then you realise that some text on the second and third pages would also benefit from the same treatment. Don't do all of those steps again! Use the Format Painter! Here's how:

1. Put the cursor (by clicking) anywhere in the text you have applied all of the formating changes to.
2. Click on the Format Painter button.
3. Highlight the text you want to apply the changes to. All of your changes have been applied at once!

If you only want to apply the character formatting (i.e. just the bolding, size and font from the example above), then highlight a word instead of just putting the cursor somewhere in the paragraph in step 1.

Another trick worth knowing is that if you double-click the Format Painter button, it stays on. That means you can apply the same formatting to as many sections of text as you want without going back to the button each time. To turn it off, just single-click the button, or press Esc on the keyboard.

Format Painter can also be used in other Microsoft Office applications, such as Excel and Powerpoint, as well as in some other word-processors, including the free Open Office.