Legend

Question

Merged text not formatting when using find/replace

Forum|Forum|3 days ago
April 13, 2026
5 replies
42 views

Hi all! I’m learning about merging data into my InDesign files. I’ve figured out how to do it (YAY!). But I noticed that a lot of the data (text) in my Excel file isn’t formatted. I need to italicize certain magazine names. I figured I could just do a find/replace. But… it doesn’t change the merged text. I did a test, and it DOES change the text I added to test this. But it won’t change the merged text. I can go in and do it by hand, but it won’t do it all at once. What can I do to get around this?

In case I didn’t make it obvious, the merged text IS actually text… and is editable.

Thanks!

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @DigitalChickster ,

Thanks for reaching out, and sorry to hear you’re running into this. I tried recreating the issue on my end using Windows 11 with InDesign 21.3, but I wasn’t able to reproduce it. In my testing, the find and change formatting worked as expected on the merged text as well.

Could you please confirm the InDesign version and OS you’re currently using? I’d also suggest manually resetting the preferences and then testing the issue again. You can follow the video at the bottom of this article for the steps: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/setting-preferences.html

Let me know how it goes after trying this. Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

M

Manan Joshi

Community Expert

Check if the text you are trying to replace is not on a locked/invisible layer etc. You need to switch options in the find/replace box to find and replace text in certain specific areas and state. Check the dialog you have a bunch of these options to toggle

-Manan

DigitalChicksterAuthor

Legend

OMG. I’m an idiot. I meant to. Thanks!

davescm

Community Expert

You would be better raising this in the InDesign community. https://community.adobe.com/indesign-669
Unfortunately, in these new forums, I cannot yet move your post for you.
Dave

DigitalChicksterAuthor

Legend

Hi all! I’m learning about merging data into my InDesign files. I’ve figured out how to do it (YAY!). But I noticed that a lot of the data (text) in my Excel file isn’t formatted. I need to italicize certain magazine names. I figured I could just do a find/replace. But… it doesn’t change the merged text. I did a test, and it DOES change the text I added to test this. But it won’t change the merged text. I can go in and do it by hand, but it won’t do it all at once. What can I do to get around this?

In case I didn’t make it obvious, the merged text IS actually text… and is editable.

Thanks!

J

Jeffrey_Smith

Community Expert

It sounds like the intended italicized text is contained within the record. Are there many magazine names, or a few? If a few, you could create a GREP style that would apply a character style (italics) to the magazine name(s).

If many, then you should be able to search and replace the post-merged text. Keep in mind that the data merge process adds tags to the text. And perhaps the tag is used incorrectly in the search criteria.

Also, any formatting in data source text will not make it through the merge. Styles need to applied in the master merge document.

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