No option to wipe local formatting while retaining character styles when applying Paragraph style

[M Black]

I apply character styles in a Word file to identify italic, bold etc. The styles I create have just italic, no font or font size specified. I import the Word file. Then I change the Word Normal paragraph style to my Affinity Normal style. 

Now all the italic, bold etc remains in the font and font size of the original Word file. There doesn't seem to be an option to apply a paragraph style while retaining the character styles AND removing local formatting. I do this all the time in InDesign. It should be possible for the new paragraph style to wipe any local formatting  but retain the formatting in character styles. There is no such option.

Also, strangely, tonight, when I applied a paragraph style directly, all the regular font went bold. The paragraph style had Regular specified. No bold specified anywhere. So why did it go bold?

I am disappointed that I can't use Affinity now. I really needed to because your endnotes function seems to be really good.

[MikeTO]

Hi and welcome to the forum. I'm a bit confused as to what you mean because applying a paragraph style does retain the character styles while removing local formatting.

• Applying a paragraph style will not change the character style but it will replace any individual paragraph or character attributes.
• Applying a character style will not change the paragraph style or individual character attributes.

I believe this is the same as Apple Pages. It is similar to Microsoft Word except that with Word the first time you apply a paragraph style it doesn't replace the individual character attributes but if you apply it a second time it does. I've always found this a convenient trick in Word but it probably confuses many users.

If you're still experiencing a problem could you provide a small sample file from Word and the steps to duplicate the issue?

Thanks,

Mike

[walt.farrell]

15 hours ago, M Black said:

There doesn't seem to be an option to apply a paragraph style while retaining the character styles AND removing local formatting.

You don't mention having applied any local formatting. Please provide more details.

[M Black]

I'm not sure what's happening here, but I tried again with a new file. It's not the local formatting. It's the imported character styles.

In my Word file, I find all italic and apply a character style which specifies only italic and a text colour, nothing else, no font or font size.

What this does in Word is to apply the character style to all the italic, but also the font and size in the Normal paragraph style, which is Callibri 12. The text generally has had the size reduced to size 10. But in applying my character style, Word seems to revert to Normal for that text. The character style doesn't specify a size though.

Now I import this Word file into Publisher. My basic paragraph style (called MyNormal) in Publisher is Minion Pro size 11 on 15.

So now I Find and replace the Word Normal paragraph style with MyNormal style. Everything is fine except that all the character styles are now in size 12. The character style as imported has had size 12 added by Publisher.

Now I create a new paragraph style (as MyNormal but size 9 font on 11 point leading). I apply this to a paragraph. The whole paragraph now has 11pt leading, and everything without a character style is in size 9. Everything with a character style is in size 12.

I need to be able to import character styles without a size specified because there will be italic in text, indented quotes, endnotes etc, all with different sizes defined by the Paragraph style. A character style should not be stuck with the font size of wherever it came from originally.

 

[MikeTO]

Could you please upload a small sample of your Microsoft Word and Publisher files for testing? We don't need to see everything. With MS Word just a sample of text formatted with the styles and with Publisher just a blank document with the style sheet you're using.

Publisher will never add an attribute such as font size to a style without you adding it. I think you had your styles set up one way in Word but MyNormal in Publisher is set up differently so it's just a clash between the two methods. But without the documents it's hard for us to understand.

Cheers

[M Black]

I placed the Word file in this new Publisher file. Then I did a Find and Replace to replace the paragraph style Normal (the Word style) with My Normal (my Publisher paragraph style). 

You can see that any text with a character style is retaining the font size from Normal. 

It shouldn't do that. The character style in Word doesn't have a size specified.

 

MBlack sample.docx M Black untitled.afpub

[MikeTO]

I used your Publisher document but deleted the text so I could import the Word file from scratch.

So:

• In Word, Normal (para style) is set to 12pt and you have overridden it to 10pt rather than redefining it to 10pt. You also overrode Normal with a first line indent rather than redefining it but there's no issue with that part. 
• In Word, MW Italic (char style) is applied to some of the text in the paragraph - this style does not change the text size but the text formatted as MW Italic is also all 12pt, not 10pt.
• When imported into Publisher, it all comes in correctly, at least for the styles and text sizes, I didn't check everything.
• If I delete the MW Italic style in Word, the text reverts to the default 12pt size because Normal is defined as 12pt.
• If I delete the MW Italic style in Publisher, the text reverts to the default 12pt size because Normal is defined as 12pt, identical to Word.
• After undoing those deletes, I used Find and Replace to replace Normal with My Normal (para style). This is equivalent to applying a paragraph style so the individual attributes you applied in Word, including 10pt, were replaced.

2 hours ago, M Black said:

So now I Find and replace the Word Normal paragraph style with MyNormal style. Everything is fine except that all the character styles are now in size 12. The character style as imported has had size 12 added by Publisher.

The MW Italic style was defined in Word as text size = no change and Normal was set to 12pt. There were no character overrides in MS Word for the MW Italic text so the text was shown as 12pt in Word, not 10pt. Please see the screenshot of Word below.

I'm not finding any unexpected behaviour here, I think Publisher is working as expected.

I think it would be best if in Word you defined Normal as 10pt rather than overriding it. Also add the first line indent to the Normal definition.

[M Black]

The test is in 10 point due to local formatting by the author. This is not my file. The author knows nothing about styles and just applies text and sizes at will. This is all local formatting. The italic was all in size 10 until I applied the character style in Word, when it reverted to the font and font size in the Normal style.

The character styles in Word seem to revert to the Normal paragraph style. That's why it's in size 12.

All the paragraphs which were in Normal style but had 10pt applied locally behaved as one would expect. My new style, when applied, was respected as to font and font size. It was only the text with character formatting that insisted on being in size 12 regardless of what the paragraph style said.

My problem is that I have been using this system in InDesign for many years, and it works perfectly. The character styles make the character bold or italic or whatever, and the font and font size is determined by the paragraph style applied to it.

Normal in Publisher is of course identical to Word because it's imported from Word. I want to replace it with MYNormal in Publisher which is a different font, different font size, and different leading. When I apply the MyNormal in Publisher, everything changes to the MyNormal definition except for the font SIZE of anything with a character style. That text changes font and leading as per the MyNormal style, but not SIZE.

 

 

[M Black]

Definitely something wrong!  Just to see, I went back to my other laptop with Publisher 1 and placed the same sample file as I had done with Publisher 2. It worked flawlessy!!!  

The file was placed in the Publisher file. The text generally was size 10, but anything with a  character style was a size12 as before.  When I did a Find and Replace for the Word Normal with my new Publisher paragraph style, everything changed to the font, size and leading in my new style. I created yet another Paragraph style with a different font size and leading. When this was applied, everything changed to the new size and leading.

So Publisher1 behaves exactly like InDesign, and Publisher 2 has messed this up in some way.

[loukash]

4 hours ago, M Black said:

You can see that any text with a character style is retaining the font size from Normal. 

It shouldn't do that. The character style in Word doesn't have a size specified.

Before applying a style via Find & Replace, first you must define 1) what "My Normal" should change, and 2) how it should be applied to the text.

#1 is done via the Edit Text Style window. E.g. if you want to keep the local text size unchanged, don't define any font size in My Normal. But if your My Normal font size is now defined as 11 pt, that's what Publisher will do. 

#2 you can define before running Find & Replace by clicking the My Normal hamburger menu in the Text Styles panel and choosing the Apply option you want to … apply.

In general, Publisher will simply do what you tell it to do. There are many options.

[M Black]

I understand all that. The point is, it's not doing it. It applies the font size only to text which doesn't have a character style assigned. The size of the imported text with a character style remains the same no matter what.

It works correctly in Publisher1 but not in Publisher2.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, M Black said:

It applies the font size only to text which doesn't have a character style assigned. The size of the imported text with a character style remains the same no matter what.

It works correctly in Publisher1 but not in Publisher2.

I think now I understand what you mean: the pink & green text remains at 12 pt in v2.

The difference seems to be that v1 imports/creates the character styles with Font Size: No Change attribute, whereas v2 assigns them as Font Size: 12 pt.
Applying the paragraph style then simply just respects this difference.

Don't ask me which method is correct though, i.e. what is the "bug" and what is "by design".

In any case, the fix is easy: delete (= "no change") the Font Size value in both MW BOLD and MW ITALIC and all instances will inherit the 11 pt My Normal font size.

[M Black]

Yes. That works, although having to go through and find all the character styles to change them is quite an annoyance. 

It is definitely a bug in Publisher2. I didn't want it to make the size12. It should work as in Publisher1, and leave the size at "no change" unless I specify a size.

[loukash]

26 minutes ago, M Black said:

having to go through and find all the character styles to change them is quite an annoyance

They are listed in the Text Styles panel. You don't have to search for each instance in the document manually. You can also search them via Find & Replace. Or you can keep the original character style definition as is, make a copy of it minus the font size value and replace all style instances with a few clicks via F&R again. 

Many ways lead to Rome, and some of them are very short.  

[M Black]

I just feel I shouldn't have to do any of this if Publisher2 would just behave like Publisher1. It really should.

You are recommending a workaround for something that shouldn't be happening.

[loukash]

9 minutes ago, M Black said:

I just feel I shouldn't have to do any of this if Publisher2 would just behave like Publisher1. It really should.
You are recommending a workaround for something that shouldn't be happening.

Well, of course you can also just sit there, hold your breath and wait until Serif fixes the bug in three, two, one…
Your choice.
No offense…  

[loukash]

52 minutes ago, M Black said:

It is definitely a bug in Publisher2.

Seems so.
I just checked your Word doc in LibreOffice, and the original "MW …" character styles don't have any font size defined.