Creating a new Paragraph Style that Preserves Underlying Formatting

[Robert Gibson PWES]

Hi guys....

How do I create a new Paragraph style that just increases the font size from 12 pt to 13 pt, as an example, but keeps the underlying formatting? i.e. Italics stay as italics, bold stays as bold etc. If I modify a paragraph style like Body etc. and the ONLY thing I change is font pt size, when I save and apply it, all the underlying formatting is removed.  I used 'Place' to bring the text in successfully, but now I'm modifying the text and I realize the client would want the font size increased a bit. I really wanted all the text to be in 'Body' style so that if I need to make further changes I wouldn't have to do anything else other than modify the style, but when I apply it, it changes. When I create a new Paragraph style and again only make the point size change, everything else changes to regular, even with 'No Changes" set to font family and font weight.  What am I missing?

 

[MikeTO]

You can either edit Body to make it 13 pt or create a new style based on Body and set it as 13 pt, whatever works best for your document.

When you apply or re-apply a paragraph style to text, the formatting overrides will be removed. If you want to keep them, you can click the menu icon to the right of the style name in the Text Styles panel and choose how you want to apply the style. You might try Apply Body to Paragraphs and Preserve Character Formatting.

Cheers

[Robert Gibson PWES]

I'd never seen " Apply Body to Paragraphs and Preserve Character Formatting" before. THANKS!

[bbrother]

2 hours ago, Robert Gibson PWES said:

How do I create a new Paragraph style that just increases the font size from 12 pt to 13 pt, as an example, but keeps the underlying formatting? i.e. Italics stay as italics, bold stays as bold etc.

It is best to always use character styles to bold or italicize sentences or words in a paragraph, because character styles are preserved intact when a paragraph style is applied or edited. You should avoid local formatting (text atributte(s) applied to character, word or paragraph directly). Local formatting causes a lot of extra work if you want to change something.

@MikeTO is there a reason why Preserve Character Formatting also adds an override for font family, font size and character fill for all characters in the paragraph while Preserve Local Formatting does not?

[Robert Gibson PWES]

14 minutes ago, bbrother said:

It is best to always use character styles to bold or italicize sentences or words in a paragraph, because character styles are preserved intact when a paragraph style is applied or edited. You should avoid local formatting (text atributte(s) applied to character, word or paragraph directly). Local formatting causes a lot of extra work if you want to change something.

@MikeTO is there a reason why Preserve Character Formatting also adds an override for font family, font size and character fill for all characters in the paragraph while Preserve Local Formatting does not?

@bbrother That's great to know! I'm trying to preserve text that was imported from Word already formatted, and all I want to do is change the font - so character styles would probably be just as much or more work for me to apply as I'd have to apply them individually and the document is already over 150 pages. I'm trying to make my work easier not more complicated!

And are you suggesting I use Preserve Local Formatting instead of Preserve Character Formatting? Could you explain the override for font family comment? What are the ramifications? What's the difference?

[Old Bruce]

4 minutes ago, Robert Gibson PWES said:

@bbrother That's great to know! I'm trying to preserve text that was imported from Word already formatted, and all I want to do is change the font - so character styles would probably be just as much or more work for me to apply as I'd have to apply them individually and the document is already over 150 pages. I'm trying to make my work easier not more complicated!

If you use Find and Replace to find all the Bold Text in your placed text and apply a Character Style that changes only the font to Bold your life will be easier.

[MikeTO]

23 minutes ago, bbrother said:

@MikeTO is there a reason why Preserve Character Formatting also adds an override for font family, font size and character fill for all characters in the paragraph while Preserve Local Formatting does not?

I'm unsure what you mean, the preserve commands don't add anything, they just retain what is already overridden.

For example, if I have a paragraph formatted as Body + Emphasis (defined as Italic) + Font Family: Garamond + Left Indent: 15 mm, this is what will happen:

• Apply Body to Paragraphs (default) = Body + Emphasis
• Apply Body to Paragraphs and Clear Character Styles = Body
• Apply Body to Paragraphs and Preserve Character Formatting = Body + Emphasis + Font Family: Garamond
• Apply Body to Paragraphs and Preserve Local Formatting = no change

The only difference between the latter two commands is the first retains character overrides and the second retains character AND paragraph overrides. The command names are somewhat confusing.

[Robert Gibson PWES]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

If you use Find and Replace to find all the Bold Text in your placed text and apply a Character Style that changes only the font to Bold your life will be easier.

I used that to find all the text marked in blue as those were the ones to be set up as Heading 2, so that definitely helped. Thanks! I used the first tip to select everything and change the Character Style to Body then highlighted and marked the headings. Definitely made things easier...

[bbrother]

6 hours ago, Robert Gibson PWES said:

Could you explain the override for font family comment?

6 hours ago, MikeTO said:

I'm unsure what you mean.

1. Create two dummy lorem ipsum paragraphs, use app defaults:

   • Font: Arial

   • Font style: Regular

   • Font size: 12pt

   • C:0 M:0 Y:0 K:100

2. Select one word in first paragraph an make it bold (local formatting).

3. Select one word in second paragraph and apply strong emphasis character style (character formatting).

4. Now create paragraph style called "Body red" :

   • Font: Cambria

   • Font style: Regular

   • Font size: 15pt

   • C:2 M:96 Y:100 K:0

5. Now when you apply "Body red" to those two paragraphs with Preserve Character Formatting visually nothing changes. In the Current Formatting field in text styles panel you can see: Body red + Font: Arial; font size: 12; Character fill: C:0 M:0 Y:0 K:100. Everything after + sign indicates an override.

6. Alternatively if you apply "Body red" style using Preserve Local Formatting this time paragraphs will change to 15pt, Cambria regular, Text fill: C:2 M:96 Y:100 K:0, local and character formatting applied in point 2 and 3 will be kept. In the Current Formatting field you'll see only "Body red" with no overrides.

The documentation states that the only difference between Preserve Character Formatting and Preserve Local Formatting is how paragraph indents and alignments are handled. In the former, indents and alignments are overridden when the paragraph style is applied, while in the latter, they are preserved.

So my question is why in point 4 an override (+ Font: Arial; font size: 12; Character fill: C:0 M:0 Y:0 K:100) is applied to "Body red" and in point 6 no when the only difference should be how indents and alignments are handled?

 

6 hours ago, Robert Gibson PWES said:

So character styles would probably be just as much or more work for me to apply as I'd have to apply them individually and the document is already over 150 pages.

You can use the Find and Replace panel to find all words with bold or italic local formatting and replace with character style.

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, bbrother said:

The documentation states that the only difference between Preserve Character Formatting and Preserve Local Formatting is how paragraph indents and alignments are handled. In the former, indents and alignments are overridden when the paragraph style is applied, while in the latter, they are preserved.

So my question is why in point 4 an override (+ Font: Arial; font size: 12; Character fill: C:0 M:0 Y:0 K:100) is applied to "Body red" and in point 6 no when the only difference should be how indents and alignments are handled?

The Help page is wrong. It states:

• Apply <style> to Paragraphs and Preserve Character Formatting—The style is applied and local formatting (bold,italic, etc.) and character styles are kept; paragraph indents and alignment settings are overridden.
• Apply <style> to Paragraphs and Preserve Local Formatting—The style is applied and local formatting (bold,italic, etc.) and character styles are kept; paragraph indents and alignment settings are kept.

As you've noted, it states the only difference is paragraph indents and alignments are kept for the "local" command but that's incorrect, all paragraph attributes are kept. It also states that all "local formatting" is kept for both commands but that's not right, and it shouldn't use the term "local" for both. Each time I think about this I realize I could have explained it better in my own manual and I will rewrite it again so I feel for whoever had to write this help page, there are just too many confusing options.

Here's how to more easily see what's happening. Create a new document with the default attributes and type two words, one in the default Arial 12, and one in Times 24. Define a new style with a different font and size, Garamond 18.

When you choose "and Preserve Character Formatting", the words will still be Arial 12 and Times 24 because all individual character attributes that don't match the new style are converted to overrides. When you choose "and Preserve Local Formatting", Arial 12 will change to Garamond 18 and only Times 24 will be retained. Arial 12 is the document default so it wasn't an override and wasn't preserved while Times 24 was overriding the document default and was preserved. This is what is meant by "local".

At least that's how I think it's working right now, I may change my mind again later. 🙂 

[bbrother]

@MikeTO 

This could be explained in more detail and with examples, as what is currently in the documentation is very confusing.
I would also consider better command names, because now they're like↓

🤔😵🤯