The Format Painter icon in Microsoft Word lets you copy formatting from one section of a Word document and apply it to text in another section of the document. As the name implies, you can paint specific text formatting to other areas of your document by selecting the format you want to apply and then adding the formatting to the new text in your Word document.

The Format Painter icon looks like a paintbrush. The steps below describe how you can use it to copy text formatting in Word 2007:

1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text containing the formatting you want to copy.
3. Click the Format Painter icon.
4. Select the text you want to format.

If you want to apply copied formatting to different areas of a document, double click the Format Painter icon. You can apply the copy text repeatedly until you press Esc.