Excel Tip: Remove all formatting

Just a really simple tip this week, as the week started with a public holiday, both here and in the US. That means that you're either lucky enough to have the week off and not interested in spreadsheets at all, or, like me, you've got four days to fit in a week's work!

Have you ever inherited (I'm sure you wouldn't have created one yourself) one of those Excel files with wild formatting all over it? 5 or 6 different fonts in as many different sizes and number formats, and twice as many colours?

Here's a simple tip to strip it all away leaving you with the important stuff - i.e. the data in the cells.

First of all, highlight the range you want to clear (click in grey box in the top left corner of the screen, to the left of the A of the column headings and above the 1 of the row headings, if you want to select the whole sheet).

On the Home Ribbon, over to the right hand side of the screen (below AutoSum and Fill), there is a button called Clear (with a picture of an eraser next to it).

Click this and you will be presented with the following options:

• Clear All
• Clear Formats
• Clear Contents
• Clear Comments
• Clear Hyperlinks

Click "Clear Formats" and this will remove all formatting from the selected cells.

That's it. Nice and clean so that you can start again!

If you enjoyed this post, go to the top of the blog, where you can subscribe for regular updates and get two freebies "The 5 Excel features that you NEED to know" and "30 Chants for Better Charts".