excel can't clear formatting

I am using excel 2007 with 64bit windows 7

I am unable to clear the formatting of rows or columns in a spreadsheet.
If I change the default column width and/or row width then Ctrl-A to select the whole sheet then go to the Home tab and under Editing click Clear and select either Clear All, then all formatting is cleared except the column and row widths. If I use Clear Formats, nothing happens. Any ideas why not? I have tried this on both new and existing spreadsheets and get the same result for each.

Is there any other way to reset the column and row widths?

Thanks for your reply which makes sense but doesn't explain what I have happening. You say color, bold etc are formats and so will not be treated as data therefore not affected by Clear All.
When I use Clear All, bold, merged cells, color, some rowheights, right, left and centre justification are all reset to default and all cells are set to blank. If I use Clear Formats, bold, merged cells, color, some rowheights, right, left and centre justification are all reset to default. Column widths are not set to default and [I]some/I] rowheights are set to default. Why some rows are reset and others are not is beyond me. In one worksheet I have set some rows to wrap text and centre text vertically and horizontally. When I use Clear Format on this sheet, all get reset to defaults. On another sheet in the same workbook, I have a row formatted in the same way and Clear Formats resets everything except the row height to default.