Thanks Lily, but no luck.
This is what I'm doing:
1. Select the caption.
2. Change the font style from 'Arial - regular' to 'New system font - regular'. (the font style changes after this)
3. Save changes to existing style from the hamburger menu. (the formatting is cleared when I do this)
The format of the text inside the captions is as follows, "Click the OK button to procced."
The 'OK' in boldface changes to regular after I save the changes to exixting style.
Finally!
Captivate has NO character styles at all, only object styles. You changed the object style, but that one word was overriding the object style, and that type of formatting gets lost of course. It is logical... now I see what you mean by 'formatting'. Captivate has no hierarchy in styles like is the case for desktop publishers (like InDesign). That type of overriding object styles will always be lost. You would need to have 'OK' in an individual text container, and create a separate style for it.
Same would happen if you copy/paste appearance only for text, unless you copy only from a bolded word to another word.