Pasting text between documents, style changes

[Basic Paragraph Style] was defined different in different versions of InDesign and there has been a time, when it was different on Mac and Windows and even now, some language versions start different.

The further, it is possible to change this style.

If you copy and paste between 2 document with different basics the appearance will change. Therefore, never work without styles. If you copy and paste create before a folder in the styles, add to all text a style which is not based on another one and then copy and paste into the new document. It will import this folder with its styles, but not change the appearance.

You need to build up a style system accross all documents. The CC Library might be helpful.

Use the Find/Change to look for the Basic Paragraph style and replace it with No Paragraph Style, then copy-and-paste.

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@Spenno wrote:

They don't use paragraph styles (don't worry, I'm working on it - I have used styles all my life). All text is in [Basic Paragraph]. However when pasting into the second document, I would say half the time, the text completely changes to Minion Pro, and I need to restyle.

Scott summed up the issue so well that his post should be pinned to the top of this forum!

For short term, try redefining [Basic Paragraph] in the problem documents, and create proper styles as you are able. Detach [Basic Paragraph] and avoid it altogether. Some people create a "base paragraph" style and base their other Paragraph Styles on that.

Jane

You said paragraph styles are not used, but you also said Basic paragraph is used, which is a paragraph style. It is also a trap.

To understand what its happening ( I understand what is happening) you need to understand how InDesign deals with paragraph styles between documents. Say Document A has a style called “Body Copy” which uses Times New Roman. Let’s open Document B, which also has a style called “Body Copy” which uses Minion Pro. Let’s copy some text using Body Copy from Document A to Document B. When the text is pasted it will be reformated to sync with the style in the target document. Copy some Times New Roman “Body Copy” text from Document A and it will paste as Minion Pro “Body Copy” in Document B. When InDesign pasted the text it saw its formatting as [Body Copy] not [Times New Roman, 12 point, 100% Black, left justified, no tracking…]

Because someone altered the definition of Basic Paragraph in one of your documents the styles are not identical. Text copied from one document and pasted into the other will change if:

• The selected text is using Basic Paragraph
• The documents had different definitions of Basic Paragraph
• The selected text has any formatting in common with Basic Paragraph

For another example, let’s say Basic Paragraph in Document A uses 12 point Times New Roman. Select some text that is 14 point Helvetica, copy, then paste into Document B. The text will not change because it already doesn’t match the formatting of the style. You are pasting text that is seen as [Basic Paragraph + Helvetica + 14 point].

Basic Paragraph is one of my most hated features of InDesign. It has no benefit and it can only cause problems such as you have discovered. There is no way to remove the style. The best practice with Basic Paragaph is to follow these steps:

• Never apply Basic Paragraph to any text
• Never base any styles on Basic Paragraph
• Never edit Basic Paragraph

You have a mess to clean up. At least you can begin to see where the problem is. Since you can’t delete Basic Paragraph,  the best thing to do is proceed to use paragraph styles with discipline and do not use or base styles on Basic Paragraph.

Apologies, I've seen a few other posts going back a fair few years. I will have a trawl. To clarify, paragraph styles are not in use in either document.