[google-sheets] How can I copy a conditional formatting from one document to another?

Google Spreadsheets can copy cell format to destination cell, but it seems "Conditional formatting" information didn't be copied.

Can we just copy the "Conditional formatting" from one document to another?

I know we can recreate it from the "Conditional formatting" dialog but it's really time consuming, whereas if we can just copy and paste, then it's fantastic.

This question is related to google-sheets gs-conditional-formatting

The answer is


To achieve this you can try below steps:

  1. Copy the cell or column which has the conditional formatting you want to copy.
  2. Go to the desired cell or column (maybe other sheets) where you want to apply conditional formatting.
  3. Open the context menu of the desired cell or column (by right-click on it).
  4. Find the "Paste Special" option which has a sub-menu.
  5. Select the "Paste conditional formatting only" option of the sub-menu and done.

You can also copy a cell which contains the conditional formatting and then select the range (of destination document -or page-) where you want the conditional format to be applied and select "paste special" > "paste only conditional formatting"


To copy conditional formatting from google spreadsheet (doc1) to another (doc2) you need to do the following:

  1. Go to the bottom of doc1 and right-click on the sheet name.
  2. Select Copy to
  3. Select doc2 from the options you have (note: doc2 must be on your google drive as well)
  4. Go to doc2 and open the newly "pasted" sheet at the bottom (it should be the far-right one)
  5. Select the cell with the formatting you want to use and copy it.
  6. Go to the sheet in doc2 you would like to modify.
  7. Select the cell you want your formatting to go to.
  8. Right click and choose paste special and then paste conditional formatting only
  9. Delete the pasted sheet if you don't want it there. Done.

If you want to copy conditional formatting to another document you can use the "Copy to..." feature for the worksheet (click the tab with the name of the worksheet at the bottom) and copy the worksheet to the other document.

Then you can just copy what you want from that worksheet and right-click select "Paste special" -> "Paste conditional formatting only", as described earlier.