Question Format Painter: how to make this work

[MarkRennes]

The Format Painter seems not to work in Access 2010.

1. The Format Painter button is not in Home / Text Formatting, where you might expect to find it.
2. I create a New Group and add the Format Painter icon. I cannot then use it. It stays greyed out.
3. I add Format Painter to the Quick Access menu. It stays greyed out.
4. If I view a form in Layout mode, I can sometimes get the Format Painter icon to highlight - but I cannot select just a single cell whose format I wish to copy.

Please, can someone tell me:

1. Where use of the Format Painter is documented
2. How to do a very simple thing: copy a format from one cell in a subform to another.

Many thanks!

 

[vbaInet]

When you say cell you mean control (i.e. textbox) right? If you view the form in Design View or Layout View you should be able to click on the control, click the Format Painter and click on the control you wish to apply the format to and that's it.

 

[MarkRennes]

Hello and thank you for your reply. I realise that I have asked my question badly, so I'll try again.
.
I am using a form in view mode. It's a master - detail - subdetail, so form - subform - subform.

I wish to paste data from Word into a particular field of a particular row in a detail or subdetail. When I do so, the text retains the formatting it had in Word. In Access there appears to be no facility to Paste Special -> Values as there is in Word or Excel. So I would hope to be able to select some text elsewhere in the form and copy its formatting to the newly-posted text. But I cannot get that to work; the Format Painter icon remains greyed out.

Any ideas?

Mark

 

[vbaInet]

As previously said, the Format Painter only works in Design View or Layout View. Access is a database and the way it works is different from that of an Excel spreadsheet or a Word document.

If you want to make simple changes like back colour, bold text, font colour etc you will need to do it in code.