How to Paste Column Widths in Google Sheets (Without Dragging Every Column)

Quick answer: a normal paste in Google Sheets never copies column widths — not Ctrl + V, not even when you copy entire columns. The native fix is Edit → Paste special → “Column widths only,” which resizes the destination columns to match the source without touching any data. There’s no native keyboard shortcut for it; if you want Excel’s Alt E S W keystroke in Sheets, that takes a Chrome extension. This post covers the whole job: why paste ignores widths, the native workaround, copying widths across tabs, and the keyboard option.

Why Your Paste Never Brings the Widths Along

Column width isn’t a property of the cells you copy — it belongs to the column itself. So when you paste, Sheets brings the values, formulas, and formatting, and leaves the geometry behind. The destination keeps whatever widths it already had, which is how a carefully sized summary table lands in a new tab looking like it went through a trash compactor: dates truncated, headers wrapped, numbers showing as #######-style overflow.

Copying whole columns doesn’t help either. Select column headers, Ctrl + C, paste onto other columns — the contents move, the widths don’t. If you’ve been re-dragging column borders after every paste, you’re doing manually what Paste special does in one command.

The Native Fix: Paste Special → Column Widths Only

• Copy the range whose widths you want (Ctrl + C). Selecting cells is enough — you don’t need whole columns.
• Click a cell in the destination — the top-left corner of where the widths should land.
• Go to Edit → Paste special → “Column widths only” (or right-click → Paste special).

The destination columns — the same number of columns as the source, starting from your selected cell — snap to the source widths. Nothing else changes: values, formulas, and formatting in the destination all stay put. It’s the exact counterpart of Excel’s Paste Special → Column widths.

The habit worth building is a two-pass paste: paste the data normally first (Ctrl + V), then — with the source still on the clipboard — immediately run Paste special → Column widths only on the same spot. Data first, geometry second, and the copy looks identical to the original.

Copying Widths to Another Tab

Paste special works across tabs in the same spreadsheet, and that’s where it earns its keep. Copy the source range on one tab, switch tabs, and run Paste special → “Column widths only” at the destination. To carry an entire tab’s layout over, click the corner box above row 1 (or press Ctrl + A twice) to select everything, copy, then paste special onto cell A1 of the target tab.

One shortcut around the whole problem: if you’re starting a fresh tab that should mirror an existing one — the classic new-month copy of a reporting page — right-click the tab and choose Duplicate instead of building it from a blank sheet. Duplicated tabs keep every column width, so there’s nothing to paste.

In Excel, This Is Alt E S W

If you came from Excel, your hands already know the sequence: Alt → E → S opens Paste Special, W picks Column widths. It’s a legacy accelerator from the old Edit menu, and it still works in every modern Excel — which is why anyone who’s built models for a living can run it without looking. Google Sheets has nothing behind those keys. There’s no Alt-menu system, no entry on the shortcut list, and the “Enable compatible spreadsheet shortcuts” toggle doesn’t add one. Pasting column widths in Sheets is a mouse trip through the Edit menu, every single time.

That mouse trip is the kind of thing XLKeys exists to remove. It’s a Chrome extension that makes Excel’s Alt-key sequences work in Google Sheets, and Alt E S W does exactly what your hands expect:

• Copy the range whose widths you want (Ctrl + C).
• Select a cell in the destination columns.
• Press Alt, release it, then type E, S, W (Option → E → S → W on Mac).
• The destination columns resize to match the source — contents untouched.

The rest of the paste special family comes along too: Alt E S V for values, Alt E S T for formats, Alt E S E for transpose. The Alt E S suite is part of XLKeys Pro, which has a 30-day free trial — the core extension and shortcuts like Alt H O I are free. If you’re missing more than just paste special, the full Excel-to-Sheets conversion table shows what Sheets covers natively and what the extension adds.

Paste Widths vs. Autofit: Different Jobs

These two get mixed up because both end with resized columns. Paste column widths copies a layout you already have — use it when a table should match another table, like keeping every monthly tab of a reporting pack identical. Autofit sizes columns to whatever content is in them — use it when there’s no source to match and you just want everything readable. For that job, see the autofit column width guide; in XLKeys terms, it’s Alt H O I instead of Alt E S W.

Which Method Should You Use?

If you’re rebuilding column widths by hand more than a couple times a week, install XLKeys and paste them instead — Alt E S W, same as Excel.