How To Remove Formatting In Excel?

Many professionals prefer having an Excel workbook without any formatting. In cases such as this, you would want to remove formatting in Excel. While you could deselect each format from the Home ribbon, the process is tedious if you have layered multiple formats on top of each other.

Although you can make certain text or cells stand out from the Excel grid by changing its format, it is very easy to go overboard with it. If you want to remove the text or cell formatting in Excel, keep reading this article!

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How to Remove Formatting in Excel?

You can easily revert the formatting settings for a single cell or multiple cells from the Excel grid. You can clear text formatting such as bold, italic, and underline to conditional formatting for both text and cell formats.

Using Clear Formats Option

Excel has the option to clear formats for all selected cells in the Editing section of the Home tab. This will remove all formatting for both texts and cells. You can also use Alt + H + E + F to clear the format from cells by navigating through the ribbon.

On Windows

Open Microsoft Excel to open your document.
Select the section you want to reset the formatting on your page, or use Ctrl + A on your keyboard to select all elements from your grid.
From Home, select the icon with the purple eraser in the Editing section.
Choose Clear Formats.

On Mac

Open Microsoft Excel on your Mac.
Open your document.
From the menu bar, select Edit.
Choose Clear, then select Formats.

On Web version

Open your browser and navigate to Excel Online.
Log in with your outlook credentials.
Open your document.
Select the text or cell you want to revert the formatting for. If you want to clear the workbook’s formatting, use Ctrl + A.
From the Home tab, select the horizontal three-dot on the ribbon.
Under Editing, select Clear > Clear Formats.

On Android/ iOS

Open the mobile application version of Microsoft Excel.
Open your document.
Tap on the cell you wish to clear the formatting for.
Select the icon with the letter A on top of the program.
From the home tab, scroll down to select Clear.
Choose Clear Formats.

Using Format Painter

You can also use the format painter in Excel to remove all formatting from your Excel cell. You can use the format painter to paste the format of an empty to the cell with your formatted cell. The Format painter is currently unavailable in the mobile application version of MS Excel.

Open your worksheet.
Select an empty cell from the Excel grid.
From the Home tab, select the paintbrush icon from the Clipboard section.
Select the cell formatted cell.

Using Paste Special

You can also use paste special in the grid to remove formatting. This method is especially useful in clearing formats for bigger workbooks. This method is limited to the desktop version of Excel 365.

Select your content from the grid, then copy it (Ctrl + C / Command + C).
Right-click on the grid, then choose Paste Special.
Under Paste, select the box next to Values.
Click OK.

Through Table Design

If you wish to keep the table but do not want it to appear as one, you can clear its table style. You can still use features such as Sort and creating Power Query with your table elements.

Open your workbook, then select your table.
Head to the Table Design tab.
Select the fly-out menu from the Table Styles section.
Click on the first option under Light.

How to Remove Source Formatting?

When you copy-paste content directly from the web to your Excel grid, your text may still have the formatting from the website. In cases such as this, you can use Paste Options to ensure that the format of the pasted content matches your current Excel format. However, you must be sure that no formatting is applied to your current workbook for this method to work.