Clear / Remove All Formatting in Excel & Google Sheets
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This tutorial demonstrates how to clear and remove all formatting in Excel and Google Sheets.
Clear Formats
In Excel, you can remove all formatting from a cell or range of cells with one command. This resets all formatting; any bolding, colors, number formats, etc. are cleared. Say you have a dataset formatted as shown in the picture below.
As you can see, there’s a variety of formatting here. The font color for the headings is white, cell D2 is center aligned, every other row is light blue, Column D values are formatted as dates, etc.
To remove all these formats and have plain data with default font size and a general format, follow these steps:
- Select the range (B2:D9).
- Then in the Ribbon, go to the Home tab.
- Choose Clear from the Editing tab.
- Click Clear Formats.
As a result, all data formats are cleared from range B2:D9. All cells are left bottom aligned, there is no background color, and all data have a general format.
Tip: You can clear cells completely in a similar way.
Clear Formats in Google Sheets
In the same way as in Excel, formats can be cleared in Google Sheets with a single command. We’ll use the same example as above.
- So to clear formats in Google Sheets, first select the range.
- Then in the Ribbon, go to Format.
- Choose Clear Formatting. (Or use the CTRL + / shortcut.)
As a result, all data formats are cleared in the range B2:D9.
