Endnotes Not Adopting Paragraph Style Font from Imported Word Document in InDesign

[Stefan35087838b24q]

Hi,

I'm working with a student on layouting a scholarly journal and we keep running in the same issue: when importaing a word document and applying a paragraph style, the endnotes retain the original font choice from Word and don't get updated with the font set in the pargraph style. When I clear overrides, we get the paragraph style font but also lose italics, so that's not a feasible option. This appears to only be an issue in endnotes. It also happens when endnotes are imported as static text.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

<Title renamed by MOD>

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Stefan35087838b24q,

Thank you for reaching out, and I completely understand how frustrating it can be when styles don’t apply as expected, especially with endnotes.

It sounds like the issue may be related to style overrides from Word, which can sometimes be tricky to manage without losing formatting like italics. I’d love to help troubleshoot further—could you let me know which version of InDesign and which operating system you're using? This will help narrow down the cause.

A potential solution would be to redefine the paragraph style or create a specific character style for italics, allowing you to clear overrides without losing essential formatting. You could also manually apply the correct font to the endnotes after clearing the overrides.

If possible, could you share a screen recording of the workflow you’re following? This will help us understand exactly where things might be going wrong.

Looking forward to helping you resolve this!

Thank you, 
Abhishek Rao

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Are the end notes in the Word doc assigned a defined, named style?

Are you using the import menu to make sure the Word style(s) are matched to your chosen ID style(s), at least for end notes?

Have you tried just selecting all end notes and applying your chosen end note style, then use "Clear Overrides" alone to see it that preserves italics etc.?

Have you tried replacing spot italics (and bold, and bold-italic) in Word with defined character styles? (This might be easier to do in ID.)

The problem is likely a combination of all of the above, starting with sloppy/erratic application of Word styles and spot-override formatting with italics etc. Clean all that up and the problem(s) should resolve.

[Robert at ID-Tasker · Accepted solution]

@Stefan35087838b24q

Here is link to a set of macros for WORD - they'll replace all combinations of Bold / Italic / Subscript / Superscript / Underline with CharStyles: 

https://ID-Tasker.com/uploads/WordStyle.zip 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And the ID doc should have defined character styles for each as well, and not rely on spot formatting. That's more... basic in ID than Word, but it can be overlooked if a user brings in too much Word-perspective. 🙂

(Not academic to me — I am doing a huge textbook right now with up to 300 end notes per chapter. It's taking all these steps, and more, to avoid having to manually reformat things like italicized journal names in the notes.)

[Stefan35087838b24q]

Dear Robert,

thank you so much--that is incredibly helpful. I'll have our student use this and see how it goes. 

Much appreciated

Stefan