The paintbrush icon is familiar; the keyboard route isn't. Alt + H, F, P picks up the formatting of the selected cells — then move to the target and press Enter to lay it down, no mouse. To format several ranges from the keyboard, copy the source once and use Paste Special → Formats (Ctrl + Alt + V, T, Enter) on each; the copy stays live, so there's nothing to re-arm. Don't reach for Ctrl + Shift + V: that's Word's paste-formatting key, and in current Excel it pastes VALUES, overwriting the numbers you meant to keep. The other half nobody uses is the double-click: single-clicking the brush gives you one application and then it switches itself off, while DOUBLE-clicking locks it on until you press Escape. That's the difference between formatting one total row and formatting eleven of them across a schedule.

1. 1Select the cell whose formatting you want and press Alt + H, F, P.
2. 2Move to the target with the arrow keys (Shift + arrows for a range) and press Enter.
3. 3For several ranges: Ctrl + C the source, then on each target Ctrl + Alt + V, T, Enter.
4. 4With the mouse: DOUBLE-click the paintbrush to lock it on, paint everything, then press Esc.

Press the shortcut to play it on a sample sheet.

• Make a new schedule match the formatting of last month's.
• Apply a total-row style down a report in one pass.
• Copy conditional formatting rules onto a new range.