Paragraph styles constantly needing to be "cleared"

@Barb Binder  & @James Gifford—NitroPress have given amazing advice.

I'll just add my tid-bit.

I use a script called PrepText 
Link here https://creativepro.com/downloads/preptext.zip

When I import the word document I'll use this script - which generates the Character Styles throughout the document.

If you already have styles - you can delete the created ones and replace them with the ones currently in the document.
I find - folders help with this - keep your created styles in a folder for safe keeping, just a suggestion.

Then when you've mapped all the text on import - run the script.

I usually select all - and hit the Clear Overrides. 

Now all the text should be very clean bare perhaps the oddity here and there- but for me that is rare.

I had variations of this happening a little while back, and there was some useful discussion. The details elude me at the moment, but — are you using the full import menu, with the styles specifically mapped? Or just relying on a one-to-one name match? Word is such a PITA in this manner, applying all kinds of default overrides in its fiendish desire to maintain total control. (Also, PS as Barb noted, avoid using Normal as an import style. Define your own and that will help bypass many of these problems. "Never Use Default Styles.")

Also remember the Clear Overrides button at the bottom of the Paragraph Styles pane... that was pointed out to me last time and can be a huge time saver.

—

Hmmm. Lot's going on here.

First of all, Normal is Word's default style. It's fine to use it in Word, but I recommend creating a new base style in InDesign (not [Basic Paragraph], and based on [No Paragraph Style]) and map Normal to that style. You can do that as you place the Word doc if you enable Import Options. The feature is called style mapping. 

https://creativepro.com/solving-word-workflow-problems-with-style-mapping/

If you have inline formatting like bold and italics used to emphasize words within a paragraph, use Find/Change to find them and replace them with an appropriate character style. For example, find italics and change it to a character style defined as italics. Repeat for the other inline formatting. 

Next, turn on the Style Highlighter to highlight anything with overrides. It's the + button at the top right of the Paragraph and Character Styles panel. Now you can clearly see what overrides are left. Save your work, select all and then click the Clear Overrides in Selection (it's the ¶* button at the bottom right of the Paragraph styles panel). That should put you in pretty good shape to continue.

If not, let us know.

~Barb