Major issues with losing formatting when importing formats FM 2015

Diane,

   I agree with Barb that overrides to the paragraph formats are a likely cause of the behavior you are seeing. Here are some other considerations:

1) You asked, "Is an applied character style considered an override??". Applying a character format to part of a paragraph does not affect the paragraph format. However, applying a character format to an entire paragraph changes the paragraph's default font to the character format just applied. The result may be a paragraph format that overrides the entry in the paragraph catalog with the same paragraph tag.

2) When I want to update all occurrences of a particular paragraph format throughout a book, I typically use a process that differs a bit from making the change in one book component and then importing paragraph formats from the modified book component into the other components (or the entire book). I make a copy of one file, and delete all formats except the one I want to modify from the paragraph catalog in the copy. Then I make the change in the copy and import paragraph formats from the copy to the book. To use your example, in the copy, I would delete all paragraph formats from the paragraph catalog except Original, change Original as needed, and then import the single-entry paragraph catalog into the book. Thus, there is no risk of the import modifying any paragraph formats other than those tagged Original.

3) Remember that every paragraph has a paragraph format with values for all paragraph properties, including the paragraph tag. The paragraph catalog may or may not contain an entry with the same paragraph tag. Furthermore, when a paragraph's format has the same paragraph tag as a paragraph catalog entry, individual properties may differ in the paragraph and the catalog entry with the same tag.

4) The paragraph tag of the current paragraph in an unstructured document is displayed on the left side of the status bar at the bottom of a document window. The tag is preceded by an asterisk if there is no format with that tag in the catalog, or if the format of the current paragraph has one or more properties with values that differ from the entry with the same tag in the catalog (if there is a selection spanning multiple paragraphs, the tag displayed is that at the start of the selection).

         --Lynne

...one additional detail that may be important: I am importing formats into a dozen files simultaneously.