How can one copy cells while preserving the original format?

I am trying to copy certain columns from one sheet of excel to another. Since there are hundreds of cells to copy, I use formulas

the cell A1 in sheet 1 will be equal to = =IF('2'!A6="","","n."&'2'!A6) and then for the rest of the column I simply drag the formula down.

This works well for values, but when it comes to formatting it does not seem to work. I suppose I need a macro for this?

Any advice welcome!

j.

You can copy the formatting. Use your help menu and look up format painter. If you'd prefer a macro that can be done also.

The formatting is actually quite complicated, and I am doing this procedure in case we would make updates to the original sheet, then the one with the links would get updated automatically with all the changes included, including the formatting....

Without any VBA knowledge do u think it would be productive to me to start creating this macro now? or would I end up wasting more time than having to manually update the links each time?

A macro would probably save time and effort. Can you attach a sample file with before and after examples, so that we can take a look?