Maintaining destination data format when copying style in VBA? - vba

Question

I am trying to copy the style from a specific column (formatted as Text starting from its second row) to another column (formatted as Date starting from its second row). Both columns stores values.
I am able to copy-and-paste the style to the destination column:
.Columns("A").Copy '# "A" is the starting column
.Columns(dest_col).PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteFormats '# dest_col is the destination column
but this code also formats it as a Text column, while I want to keep its original formatting (i.e. Date starting from the second row).
Is there any option I can use to prevent this behavior?

Answer 1

You may try to take only the values of the specific parameters, which you are interested in (E.g., style, Interior Color, Font Color etc.)
The following works only when the whole column has the same format, as far as I did not to loop through every cell:
Option Explicit
Sub TestMe()
Dim colFrom As Long
Dim colTo As Long
colFrom = 1
colTo = 5
CopyFullFontAndInterior colFrom, colTo
End Sub
Sub CopyFullFontAndInterior(colFrom As Long, colTo As Long, Optional wsN As Long = 1)
Dim copyFrom As Range
Dim copyTo As Range
With Worksheets(1)
Set copyFrom = .Range(.Cells(1, colFrom), .Cells(2 ^ 20, colFrom))
Set copyTo = .Range(.Cells(1, colTo), .Cells(2 ^ 20, colTo))
End With
copyTo.Style = copyFrom.Style
If copyFrom.Interior.Color > 0 Then copyTo.Interior.Color = copyFrom.Interior.Color
If copyFrom.Font.Color > 0 Then copyTo.Font.Color = copyFrom.Font.Color
End Sub
A possible workaround is to save the format of a given cell of the column in a variable and to use it after the .PasteSpecial:
Sub TestMe()
Dim saveOurFormat As String
saveOurFormat = Columns(5).Cells(2).NumberFormat
Columns("A").Copy
Columns(5).PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteFormats
Columns(5).NumberFormat = saveOurFormat
Application.CutCopyMode = False
End Sub