Text Defaults to Bold -- Unsure Why

[piotr4338]

Hey all, so I'm trying to create a document where I can paste minimally formatted text (italics) into a text frame and then apply a text style. I've noticed, however, that when I try to apply a text style it defaults to bold and erases all formatting. The only way I can avoid this is if, in the style, I explicitly set it to "regular" but that, obviously, also erases the formatting. 

I saw this thread, but there doesn't appear to be any problem with the stroke and I'm at a bit of a loss. I've had no problems with text styles in the past so any help would be appreciated. Attached is a sample document.

Thanks so much!

 

Bold why.afpub

[walt.farrell]

When I open your file (though I do not have your font), and put the text cursor in the first line, the Context Toolbar clearly shows the B (Bold) button activated.

 

[Brian_J]

I’m not on a computer with the Bell MT font installed, so I can’t test it, but it doesn’t look like the Font Trait is set in the Body text style. If you set the Font Trait for the Body text style to Normal — or whatever it’s named for the font — does that resolve the issue?

Edit: I didn’t see Walt’s comment; maybe what I mentioned isn’t the issue.

[piotr4338]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

When I open your file (though I do not have your font), and put the text cursor in the first line, the Context Toolbar clearly shows the B (Bold) button activated.

 

Bold was automatically activated when I used the "body" text style despite the text style being set to "no change" and that's what I'm confused about.

[piotr4338]

5 minutes ago, Brian_J said:

I’m not on a computer with the Bell MT font installed, so I can’t test it, but it doesn’t look like the Font Trait is set in the Body text style. If you set the Font Trait for the Body text style to Normal — or whatever it’s named for the font — does that resolve the issue?

When I set it to normal/regular it erases all formatting (italics) when I paste text in and that's part of the problem.

I think it's defaulting to something where the font is boldened but I can't figure out what it's defaulting to

 

I believe that in the text style, font traits should be "no change" but font weight should be "normal," but I don't know how to set the latter and/or figure out what it's reverting to.

[Brian_J]

2 minutes ago, piotr4338 said:

When I set it to normal/regular it erases all formatting (italics) when I paste text in and that's part of the problem.

Sorry man… you mentioned that in your OP but I overlooked it.

[piotr4338]

1 minute ago, Brian_J said:

Sorry man… you mentioned that in your OP but I overlooked it.

No worries! 

I feel like I want to edit [No Style] but I can't figure out how. Setting up a new style asks me what it should be based on which would be [No Style] and it becomes a loop

[Brian_J]

The bold is a mystery. Since I don't have the Bell MT font, I can't experiment with it.

What app are you copying the text from? If it's Word, doing the following will create a new text style in Affinity Publisher when copy/paste from Word:

• In Word, create a new (text) Style (don't use the default 'Normal' style). In the new Style, change the Style based on to (no style). Apply the Style to your text.
• Copy the text in Word and paste it in Affinity Publisher.

The text style used in Word will be applied to the text in Affinity Publisher, and the new style will show in the Text Styles panel. You could use this new text style as your Body text style. If you want to rename the text style, it would have to be done after all the text is copied over from Word.

I don't know if bringing the text style over from Word will have an affect on the issue. And if you're not using Word, this is all moot.

I always paste plane text into Affinity apps and apply text styles in Affinity. It would be a hassle, though, to have to reformat large amounts of text. Maybe someone else will have a suggestion.

[Brian_J]

One other thought… again, if you’re using Word.

If you create a character text style in Word for italics and use the character text style instead of the italics button in the Ribbon, the character text style will be brought into Affinity Publisher. Having a character text style applied to italic text would enable you to apply a different paragraph text style without overriding the italics.

[piotr4338]

23 minutes ago, Brian_J said:

The bold is a mystery. Since I don't have the Bell MT font, I can't experiment with it.

What app are you copying the text from? If it's Word, doing the following will create a new text style in Affinity Publisher when copy/paste from Word:

• In Word, create a new (text) Style (don't use the default 'Normal' style). In the new Style, change the Style based on to (no style). Apply the Style to your text.
• Copy the text in Word and paste it in Affinity Publisher.

The text style used in Word will be applied to the text in Affinity Publisher, and the new style will show in the Text Styles panel. You could use this new text style as your Body text style. If you want to rename the text style, it would have to be done after all the text is copied over from Word.

I don't know if bringing the text style over from Word will have an affect on the issue. And if you're not using Word, this is all moot.

I always paste plane text into Affinity apps and apply text styles in Affinity. It would be a hassle, though, to have to reformat large amounts of text. Maybe someone else will have a suggestion.

I changed it to Times New Roman if you wanna play around with it.

Thank you for this though!

What's weird to me is I've never had a problem like this before and I have another document with basically the exact same settings for text styles (save for font) and this doesn't happen at all. So I'm really not sure what's going on...

The ideal solution is there's minimal Word formatting and then text style strips an extra stuff and just keeps character styles (which is what has worked in the past).

Bold why.afpub

[MikeTO]

There's no Base style in this document so the text styles aren't based on anything. It's a best practice to base your styles on something because then you change everything in one place. If you were to select the frame with the Move tool and choose Edit > Defaults > Revert and reapply the styles, everything would be great.

If you don't want to do that (and who would), you'll have to edit the text styles and define the weights. For example, you can fix the problem if you edit Body and change it to Times Regular (not just Times) and then choose Apply Body to Paragraphs and Clear Character Styles.

[piotr4338]

11 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

If you don't want to do that (and who would), you'll have to edit the text styles and define the weights. For example, you can fix the problem if you edit Body and change it to Times Regular (not just Times) and then choose Apply Body to Paragraphs and Clear Character Styles.

Wouldn't this mean that I would have to manually re-italicize everything?

[MikeTO]

Yes, but it's finicky to fix otherwise. Try this instead. Edit Body and change it to Times New Roman and Regular (not just Times New Roman) and then select all the text and choose Times New Roman Regular.