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Thread ID: 111873 2010-08-15 05:51:00 Excel 2010 format painter problem moorsomr (15937) Press F1
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1127870 2010-08-15 05:51:00 I have Excel 2010 installed on W7 x64 and use both xls compatibility and xlsx spreadsheets. Intermittently, the format painter button transforms without warning into copying rather than painting: block origin cells > click format painter button > block destination cells (no result) > hit Enter = result: paste origin cells. Restarting Excel fails and the only way I have found to remove the problem is to reboot. This is, of course, disruptive. Since the format painter is a basic Excel tool, has anyone else encountered this problem and (I hope) found a solution? :) moorsomr (15937)
1127871 2010-08-15 08:01:00 Hi, I do not have 2010 but Format Painter is closely linked with copying and pasting. Clicking the format painter is effectively the same as Copy then Paste Special | Formats, but is made into a UI action via behind the scenes macros.

Sounds like a bug as this works fine in Excel 2007. I would try this in a new workbook and see if the same behaviour occurs. If not, it could point to a corrupt work book and I would copy info to another file.

regards,
Graham
Parry (5696)
1127872 2010-08-15 10:33:00 Many thanks Graham for the Paste Special workaround. Yes, I too had no problems in Excel 2007. When the glitch hits, it affects all workbooks - current, new, retrieved, and persists after closing and restarting Excel 2010. The only way to get it back to normal seems to be a reboot, after which the function works fine in the same workbooks. So it must be an Excel-generated transient bug of some kind that is retained in memory for the session. moorsomr (15937)
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