Excel will then place a dotted line around the selected cell or cells to let you know that something has been copied (in this case, the formatting), and your cursor will change to a paintbrush icon.

The Format Chart Pane in Excel, with the Axis Options icon selected and the corresponding settings opened. The Axis Bounds ...

Excel is displaying the appropriate icons, but you might totally miss that those icons don’t represent the data’s intent. Use conditional formatting There is a fix.

You may have used Excel for years without delving into Styles (or stylesheets). We’re going to cover Cell Styles, and Smart Art, Drawing, Graphics, Picture, and Chart Tools.