Pick Up Object Formatting (PowerPoint)

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Catharine,

I’ve never been a fan of format painter – Either I don’t know how to use it, or it’s not ‘sank in’ to my brain ‘how it works’.
I’ve been using the pick up, apply tools ever since I found them hidden away in the ‘customize’ toolbar options. I’d be lost without them

Cheers

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I guess I think of Format Painter first because I use it in so many other apps. But pick up and apply fit the bill here.
Funny how some of the most useful tools in PPT are hidden away: pick up, apply, select multiple objects …

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Recently, I was wrestling with a complex piece of clip art that I was recoloring a chunk at a time:

One can use the Format Painter button – . However, in this case the format painter wasn’t working well for me, as the pieces of clip art contained many tiny objects and selecting them to click on was a pain.

So, it was much easier to select each tiny piece by using the TAB key. Using the TAB key will cycle you through all the objects on a slide (needless to say, I was working on a blank slide that only contained my graphic).

But TAB and the Format Painter, don’t play well together. Instead I recommend the Pick Up Object Style and Apply Object Style buttons .

Select your sample that you are copying and use the Pick Up Object Style button.
TAB through the objects until you have the destination selected and then use the Apply Object Style button. You do not need to pick up formatting again, you can continue selecting objects and applying formatting until you want to pick up a different format.
If you are a keyboard oriented person, try the
CTRL + SHIFT + C (Pick Up Object Style ) and
CTRL + SHIFT + V (Apply Object Style ) shortcuts.
You will need to customize your toolbars to locate the Pick Up Object Style and Apply Object Style buttons.

post 94,895 Compares the Format Painter and Pick Up Style buttons.

Note:
Apply Object Style is “Apply Object Style” when I hover over the buttons, but it is “Apply to Defaults” in the customization list

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I’ve been using Control-Shift-C and Control-Shift-V for ages, mainly in Word. It never occurred to me that it might have a fancy name and a toolbar button.

StuartR

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Hi Catherine,

In my version of ppt 2003, the “pick up” item is called “pick up object style” and the “apply” item is “apply to defaults”. These are the names in the customize dialog under the format category. Not sure if the shortcut keys have some other name although they work the same way.

I wasn’t sure what you meant that TAB and Format Painter don’t play well together. I think I get what you need by the following:
– select object whose format you want to use for other objects
– double click the format painter
– paint another object
– tab to another object
– paint that object if desired
– repeat last 2 steps until you’ve painted all you want
– hit escape to cancel format painting

At least the above worked for a simple experiment of 5 images. I didn’t ungroup a piece of clipart.

It probably helps to increase the magnification. I know what you mean by having to wrestle with those zillion pieces from a clipart image that have been ungrouped down to the atomic level.

BTW: I looked at that post you referred to since I was curious as to the comparison. As a famous TV character in the US would say, “did I do that?” It’s been 5 years since that post, so I don’t feel too bad about forgetting what I said 5 years ago.

Fred

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ungrouped down to the atomic level

I rechecked the name options – I’ve got “Pick Up Object Style” and “Apply Object Style” when I hover over the buttons, but it is “Apply to Defaults” in the customization list. And I think they were named slightly differently in previous versions.

Aaah, nothing like making tools easy to find .

My comment about Format Painter refers to the difficulty I have when attempting to click on very tiny items. If FP had a keyboard shortcut, one could TAB to the item and use use the shortcut (or does FP have a shortcut I don’t know about?). But tabbing to an item doesn’t ensure I can actually make contact with it when I attempt to click on it (even with increased magnification).

Plus your comparison nicely sums up another advantage of Pick Up/Apply.

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I wonder why these don’t show up in the format category in Word’s Customize window. Hmmm. I didn’t find them listed in 2002 (although the keyboard shortcuts work, of course).

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This post was about PowerPoint. You can get a similar effect in Word using Control-Shift-C (CopyFormat) and Control-Shift-V (PasteFormat).

You can add PasteFormat to a menu or toolbar (find it in the all commands section of Customize Commands). When you put this in a toolbar it comes with a tooltip of “Apply Style”

Strangely the Format Painter tool appears to already function as CopyFormat, and if you drag the CopyFormat command to a toolbar it just gives you another copy of the Format Painter tool, but this does seem to work in conjunction with “Apply Style”.

StuartR

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Thanks, Stuart…
I knew this post was about PPT, but someone else referenced WORD as well. I was curious as to why, if anyone knew, the icons weren’t in the customize window in Word while they were in the window for PPT. Seems odd to me that if the funcationality is there in both products using the KB-Shortcuts, why it wouldn’t be in the both customize menus.

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As Stuart mentions

1) The Format Painter button in Word also acts as “Copy Format” button – even after you have applied the Format Painter to other text, the formatting is still available.
2) The ‘Paste Format’ button is available for Word in the All Commands category in the Customize dialog. Its tooltip on the toolbar is somewhat misleadingly “Apply Style”.

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Another alternative for recolouring a graphic with many tiny tiny pieces is to use the Recolor function. This is done on a clipart graphic (imported from a WMF or EMF source) by right clicking the (grouped) object and choosing Format Picture > Picture > Recolor…

If your graphic was drawn in MS Office in the first place then you might want to cut it and then use Paste Special and paste it back onto the slide as a WMF which can then be recolored by this method. This may not be a great thing to do if you have MS Office graphics as included text may not be as readily editable afterwards.

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For Powerpoint 2007, you have to add the “Pickup Object style” and the “Apply Object Style” to the Quick Access toolbar too. I couldn’t find them in the Ribbon.

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