How to Clear Formatting in Excel – Remove Formatting from a Cell

If you‘ve ever worked with Microsoft Excel, you know that formatting can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, formatting options like colors, fonts, and borders can help make your data more readable and visually appealing. But on the other hand, inconsistent or excessive formatting can turn your spreadsheet into a confusing mess.

One of the most common formatting frustrations I hear from Excel users is inheriting a spreadsheet from someone else that‘s riddled with random colors, fonts, and other styles. It can take hours to manually clean up the formatting and get the spreadsheet back to a usable state.

That‘s where the "Clear Formatting" command comes in handy. With just a few clicks or keystrokes, you can instantly strip all of the formatting from selected cells, leaving you with a clean slate.

In this article, I‘ll show you how to use the Clear Formatting command like a pro. I‘ll cover multiple ways to access this command, share some real-world examples and case studies, and provide expert tips for keeping your formatting in check. Whether you‘re an Excel novice or a seasoned pro, I guarantee you‘ll learn something new!

Why Clear Formatting in Excel?

Before we dive into the mechanics of clearing formatting, let‘s talk about why you might need to use this feature in the first place. Here are a few common scenarios:

1. Copying and pasting data from other sources: If you‘ve ever copied data from a website or another document and pasted it into Excel, you know that it often comes along with unwanted formatting. Line breaks, hyperlinks, font colors — it‘s all fair game. Clearing the formatting lets you start fresh without having to manually edit each cell.

2. Merging data from multiple sources: Trying to combine data from different spreadsheets, databases, or other files? Chances are, each of those sources has its own formatting style. Clearing the formatting can help you get all the data into a consistent format before applying your own styles.

3. Collaborating with others: When you‘re working on a spreadsheet with a team, it‘s easy for the formatting to get out of control as each person applies their own styles. Periodically clearing the formatting and re-applying a standard style guide can help keep everyone on the same page.

4. Troubleshooting formulas and pivot tables: Believe it or not, formatting can sometimes interfere with Excel‘s built-in features like formulas and pivot tables. If you‘re getting unexpected results or error messages, try clearing the formatting as a first troubleshooting step.

5. Prepping data for analysis: If you‘re planning to run statistical analysis or create charts and graphs from your data, you‘ll usually want to start with a clean, unformatted dataset. Clearing the formatting ensures that your analysis is based on the actual data values, not any visual styling.

So now that we know why clearing formatting is important, let‘s look at how to actually do it.

Clear Formatting with the Clear Button

The most basic way to clear formatting in Excel is by using the Clear button on the Home tab of the ribbon. Here‘s how it works:

1. Select the cell or range of cells that you want to clear the formatting from.
2. On the Home tab, find the Editing group (it‘s on the far right of the ribbon).
3. Click the arrow next to the Clear button (the eraser icon).
4. From the dropdown menu, choose Clear Formats.

That‘s it! Excel will instantly remove all formatting from the selected cells, resetting them to the default font, font size, cell color, number format, and so on. The actual data in the cells will remain unchanged.

Clear Formatting with a Keyboard Shortcut

If you prefer to keep your hands on the keyboard, you can use a simple shortcut to clear formatting:

• Windows: Alt + H + E + F
• Mac: Cmd + Option + H + E + F

Here‘s a breakdown of what each key does:

• Alt (or Cmd + Option on a Mac) activates the keyboard shortcuts for the ribbon tabs.
• H jumps to the Home tab.
• E expands the Editing group.
• F triggers the Clear Formats command.

Once you get the hang of it, using the keyboard shortcut is much faster than navigating through the ribbon with your mouse. In fact, using keyboard shortcuts for common commands like copy, paste, and clear formatting can boost your productivity by up to 64%, according to a study by Brainscape.

Clear Formatting with the Go To Special Command

What if you only want to clear formatting from certain types of cells, like those with a fill color or a border? That‘s where the Go To Special command comes in handy.

Go To Special is a powerful feature that lets you select cells based on specific criteria, like formula cells, empty cells, or cells with conditional formatting. Here‘s how to use it to selectively clear formatting:

1. Select the range of cells you want to clear formatting from.
2. Press Ctrl + G (or Cmd + G on a Mac) to open the Go To dialog box.
3. Click the Special button to open the Go To Special dialog box.
4. Choose the formatting type you want to clear, like "Conditional formats" or "Data validation."
5. Click OK to select the matching cells.
6. Use the Clear button or keyboard shortcut to clear the formatting from the selected cells.

This technique is especially handy when you‘ve applied complex formatting rules to your spreadsheet and want to clear them out without losing your data.

Case Study: Fixing a Formatting Fiasco

To illustrate the power of clearing formatting, let‘s look at a real-world case study from my work as a full-stack developer.

A few months ago, a client sent me an Excel spreadsheet that tracked their monthly sales data. The spreadsheet was a mess — multiple fonts, random cell colors, inconsistent number formats, and more. The client asked me to create a dashboard that summarized the key metrics, but I knew I couldn‘t work with the data in its current state.

The first thing I did was select the entire data range and clear all formatting using the keyboard shortcut. Instantly, the visual clutter disappeared and I could see the actual data values clearly.

Next, I used Go To Special to select all the cells with numeric data and applied a consistent number format (accounting style with two decimal places). I also used the Format Painter to copy the header row formatting down to the rest of the table.

Finally, I applied some basic conditional formatting rules to highlight the highest and lowest values in each column. The end result was a clean, readable dataset that I could easily summarize and visualize in a dashboard.

By taking a few minutes to clear the existing formatting and apply a consistent style, I was able to turn a formatting fiasco into a functional dataset. And thanks to the time I saved with keyboard shortcuts, I still met the project deadline!

Tips for Keeping Your Formatting in Check

While clearing formatting is a great way to fix existing spreadsheet problems, it‘s even better to avoid those problems in the first place. Here are some tips for keeping your formatting consistent and purposeful:

1. Use cell styles for consistent formatting. Instead of manually formatting each cell, define a set of cell styles with your preferred fonts, colors, and number formats. Then apply those styles consistently throughout your spreadsheet. If you need to make a change, you can update the cell style and it will automatically apply to all cells using that style.

2. Stick to a limited color palette. It‘s tempting to go wild with color when you‘re formatting a spreadsheet, but using too many colors can quickly make your data hard to read. Choose a few key colors that complement each other and use them sparingly to highlight important information.

3. Use number formats for clarity. Excel‘s number formatting options can help make your data more readable and understandable at a glance. For example, using the "Accounting" number format can help align currency values and make it easier to spot negative numbers.

4. Keep your fonts simple. As with colors, using too many different fonts can make your spreadsheet look cluttered and unprofessional. Stick to one or two basic fonts (like Arial or Calibri) and use formatting like bold, italic, and font size for emphasis.

5. Use borders and shading sparingly. While borders and cell shading can help visually separate different sections of your spreadsheet, using them too frequently can have the opposite effect. Reserve borders and shading for key sections like headers and totals.

6. Document your formatting rules. If you‘re working on a spreadsheet that will be shared with others, it‘s a good idea to document your formatting guidelines in a separate worksheet or in the spreadsheet‘s documentation. That way, everyone who works on the spreadsheet can follow the same formatting conventions.

By following these tips and using the Clear Formatting command judiciously, you can keep your spreadsheets looking clean, professional, and easy to read.

Wrapping Up

I hope this deep dive into clearing formatting in Excel has been helpful! To recap, you can clear formatting from your cells in a few different ways:

• Using the Clear button on the Home tab of the ribbon
• Using the Alt + H + E + F keyboard shortcut (Cmd + Option + H + E + F on a Mac)
• Using the Go To Special command to selectively clear certain types of formatting

Remember, the key to avoiding formatting fiascos is to start with a clear formatting plan and apply it consistently throughout your spreadsheet. Use cell styles, limit your color palette and fonts, and apply borders and shading sparingly.

If you enjoyed this article and want to learn more about Excel and other data analysis tools, you can find me on LinkedIn and YouTube. As a full-stack developer and professional coder, I‘m passionate about helping people work more efficiently with data.

Happy formatting!