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Anonymous

Answered

Font changes when pasting between InDesign documents

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
January 25, 2011
7 replies
54137 views

I'm copying and pasting the content of one InDesign CS5 document into another and am finding that the font of my general body text is changing from Times to Minion Pro.

This occurs with all the following methods:

Copy and Paste multiple text frames
Copy and Paste single text frames
Copy and Paste content of a text frame into a new text frame
Drag and Dropping multiple text frames

I can't see any option in Preferences or Character pallette along the lines of 'Paste Remembers Fonts' (in the same vein as 'Paste Remembers Layers'.

I've change the default font in my existing documents to Times and also changed it with no documents open so all new documents have Times as the default.

I've also changed the Basic Paragraph style font to Times.

The correct paragraph styles already exist in both documents and remain in place when I copy and paste. Fonts for all other paragraph styles (eg headings etc) come across correctly, it's only my main body text that changes, with the font of the style showing as overidden.

Of course, I can simply select all the pasted text and clear the overides but I'd rather solve the problem properly.

One glimmer of hope: If I start another new document since changing the default font for new docs, the copy and paste retains my Times font.

Any thoughts? Can I fix my existing document's bad habit or will I need to start again?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer tlotzer

I went to the Paragraph Styles, renamed each style, except "Basic Paragraph" with a space and an "a". Went back and copy pasted and ALL WAS FINE. There was a change to a paragraph style the client had made to their new document that was conflicting.

i.e "table - tight leading" became "table - tight leading a" and so on.

D

digiguru

Participating Frequently

I'm having this issue in InDesign Creative Cloud 2020. No paragraph styles are applied. Changing the default font of the 'Basic' paragraph style seems to somewhat work but the specs need to be exactly the same (leading, tracking, kerning, weight etc), and even then it's not a perfect copy and you lose a lot of info. Text boxes all of a sudden have overflow content, different spacing, different weights and font sizes. Quite surprising and I've never had this issue before. Been using InDesign since CS3

BobLevine

Community Expert

Start a new thread. This one is years old. Please provide details and screenshots.

T

tlotzerCorrect answer

Inspiring

I went to the Paragraph Styles, renamed each style, except "Basic Paragraph" with a space and an "a". Went back and copy pasted and ALL WAS FINE. There was a change to a paragraph style the client had made to their new document that was conflicting.

i.e "table - tight leading" became "table - tight leading a" and so on.

Jeff Witchel, ACI

Community Expert

If you have two documents with Paragraph Styles named exactly the same. And copy text from the first document and paste it into the second, the pasted text will pick up the formatting of the styles of the document you're pasting into.

This is true whether the Styles are Based on Basic Paragraph or No Paragraph Style.

P

printlives

Inspiring

Starting this annual project for another year, on another new version of InDesign and still this maddening problem. Even rebuilt templates and stylesheets, but no matter what I do (change default font, clean up style sheets etc) this one style pastes from Times Roman in the formatting document to Minion in the layout document.

S

SJRiegel

Legend

Go through all of your paragraph styles and make sure that none of them are Based on [Basic Paragraph]

Then make sure that there are not identically named styles with different properties in the two documents.

P

printlives

Inspiring

Having the exact same problem, with the same fonts Times Roman pasting as Minion. I'm on ID 2018 now, but this problem has occurred for at least the last few versions with this one project.

Because of the complexity of the book, I format the text in a separate document, then paste into blocks on the main document pages. The section in question has the same style sheet in both documents, and seems to carry over all formatting correctly except for switching the font.

I have tried everything I can think of:

deleting the style sheets in the receiving doc;

copying the style sheet from receiving doc to the formatting doc and vice versa;

changing the global default font to Times;

changing the basic paragraph style font to Times

Nothing has any effect.

If I paste the text into a clean document, it carries over OK, but if I paste it anywhere in the doc it needs to go to, it changes to Minion. And its much too complicated a project to rebuild the file from scratch.

Any other ideas?

D

Demetria13

Participant

It's 2018, and I am having this exact same issue. I work with 60-80 page documents, where I need to use pages/master pages for the next project, but when I copy/paste content, or simply "move pages" to new document, they change all content to Minion Pro font. I have never had this problem before updating to 2018 Indesign.

I've tried changing the paragraph styles, the "default Indesign font", but none of these changes stick.

I am wasting a lot of time on a problem that did not occur for me before updating to this current version. I should be able to copy Indesign content from one file to another without wasting time to reformat it all back to how it was copied.

Yes, I know how to "Find Font", but that should not be the fix to this problem.

BobLevine

Community Expert

Have you read this entire thread. All possible solutions and causes are here.

Nothing has changed.

G

garyw44438813

Known Participant

This isn't an answer, its a confirmation.

In my opinion after one of the last updates I noticed that I can no longer paste formatted text from one document to another and it will retain the font information. It's as if every new document requires the fonts to be added again individually - this is naturally apart from simply a nuisance, another huge step backwards to studio productivity.

S

SJRiegel

Legend

If your text changes formatting when pasted between documents, the most likely reason is that the documents have identically named styles with different definitions. When this is the case, the text being pasted in will take on the characteristics defined for that style in the new document.

G

garyw44438813

Known Participant

In my case it isn't the formatting, its the entire font. I am having to re open the font for each individual indesign document - this can occur simply by saving an existing indesign file with a new name and then opening - the older file still has its font, the newly named file needs the fonts to be re added.

I will admit it does not happen across all documents or fonts but if I think back maybe 6/9 months I never saw this happening, but now it is a regular occurrence. Annoying given that from a studio perspective nothing has changed with regard to font handling (suitcase) hence my finger being pointed at indesign...

Peter Spier

Community Expert

In line with what Stix said, there's a good chance the problem is with the font specified for [Basic Paragraph].

Stix_Hart

Inspiring

davepolyester wrote:
One glimmer of hope: If I start another new document since changing the default font for new docs, the copy and paste retains my Times font.

If that works have you tried changing the default font in your existing doc? Just make sure nothing is selected and change it.....

A

Anonymous

Thanks for the suggestions. However, as I stated in my original post, I've already done both of those things and it hasn't helped. Sorry.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

So the formatting may have been applied as local formatting overrides, or possibly a character style. If the font spec is correct in the style definition, remove overides and see if it gets fixed. If not, check the character styles panel.

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