Importing/Placing a Word document into InDesign without hyphenation

[Attroll]

I understand how to turn off hyphenation in my InDesign document and I have it turned off everywhere that I know of, and hyphenation is no longer anywhere in used or placed in my document.
However, when I place (Ctrl+D) a word document into my InDesign file it places it in there with hyphenation on. This is very annoying.
Is there a way to make it so that when placing a word document into InDesign it will go into it with hyphenation turned off?

As of right now it is always placed with hyphenation on and I have to manually highlight at the text once I import it and turn off hyphenation.

[Willi Adelberger]

Turn off hyphenation in Word. Remove all manual hyphenation with find and replace in Word. That should always be done before importing any Word file into InDesign. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Attroll

What is set in the applied ParaStyles?

[Attroll · Accepted solution]

Thank you both Willi and Robert.

I figured it out.

Willi, it was not the Word document because I had hyphenation turned off.

Robert, I have the same paragraph styles in my Word document that I have in my InDesign document and they both have hyphenation turned off, so I thought. See below.

How I fixed it.

I noticed that two paragraph styles that were named the same thing.

One was the [Basic Paragraph] style that comes in every document and the other one I had was titled basic paragraph without the brackets. I don’t know how the one without the brackets ever got installed in my document.

The style without the brackets had hyphenation turned on. It appears that this was the one being used as the default when importing/placing the Word document.

I deleted the one without the brackets and replaced it with the one in brackets.

After I did that, everything is working correctly now.

Thank you both for a little insight and helping me.

Rick

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Just a few after-the-fact notes...

• If you remove Word formatting during inport, Word's hyphenation settings don't matter. 
• If you match your Word styles to InDesign styles, your ID styles take over, including the hyphenation settings. However, even if all your styles are matched perfectly, there is always some "Word clutter" in the file. After import, select all and clear any overrides. 
• The only way, baring some form of document coruption, you could get a "basic paragraph" style is if someone created it in ID or Word. The Word document would need the Word styles imported. 
•  

[Attroll]

Dave

Thank you for adding that little bit of information.

Some of it I know, buit some of it I did not.

Rick

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Attroll

You're welcome.

It's always best to create your own "basic paragraph" style - and use it as a Root / top most style for all other styles. Of course other styles can be based on other styles - but the path to the top should always end with your own "basic paragraph" style. 

Otherwise, you can get another head scratcher - when you copy your text to a different INDD document - and the built-in "[Basic Paragraph]" will have a different definition. 

[Attroll]

Robert

I am not sure what you mean by using it as a root / top style. Let me make sure I understand what you are saying correctly.

You're saying that I should always leave the [Basic Paragraph] there and not touch. Then I should create a new one of my own my own and use that one as my root?

This is how my paragraph style list looks now.
[Basic Paragraph]
Basic Paragraph with Indent
Index level 1
Index level 2
Index level 3
Index level 4
Level 1 = Content Print
Level 2 = Content Print
Level 3 = Content Print
Level 4 = Content Print

If I understand you correctly in what you are saying. I should create one called ‘Ricks basic paragraph’ (just a sample name) and use that as my basic paragraph style, is that correct?
Looking like this below.
[Basic Paragraph]
Ricks basic paragraph
Basic Paragraph with Indent
Index level 1
Index level 2
Index level 3
Index level 4
Level 1 = Content Print
Level 2 = Content Print
Level 3 = Content Print
Level 4 = Content Print

I appreciate all the advice. I have been working on my first real historical book now for over a year and a half. I have made a lot of mistakes in InDesign, and I have learned a lot.
I wished I had known what I know now when I first started this book. If I had I would have set it up differently in the beginning. I hate having to go back through 400 pages and changed formats. I think I have it all set up right now, I hope.

Thank you.

Rick

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Attroll 

Here is a visual aid 😉

(If you work As you're working on Windows I can give you access to the full version - but what you see above is still available in the FREE version)

I've recreated your styles structure - but with two versions:

Green rect - all "Level X" styles are based on the "Ricks basic paragraph" - so are kind of on the same "level" in terms of hierarchy / succession.

Cyan rect - each consequtive leve is based on the previous level - are based on each other / inherit formatting from the prrevious level.

Which solution you would use - depends on if you want to have the formatting to be "passed on" to the kid or not.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[...] I hate having to go back through 400 pages and changed formats. I think I have it all set up right now, I hope.

By @Attroll

Please let us know what would you like to change - and we'll help you do it quicker.

[Attroll]

I hope I have my document/book set up right now. This is why I am asking. I want to make sure before I proceed any further.

I am only using all the styles mentioned below.
All these styles are based off the [Basic Paragraph].
All I did was add a new style by duplicating the [Basic Paragraph] and renaming it.
Then I did minor tweaks to each one of these styles.

Let me explain each one.
Basic Paragraph with Indent, is the same as [Basic Paragraph] but I only added a first line indent of 0.1852 inch to it.

Index levels were all based off the [Basic Paragraph].
I created these for indexing in my document for the Table of Contents. All I did was change the font size and use them for indexing throughout my document.
Index level 1
Index level 2
Index level 3
Index level 4

Level 1 = Content Print through Level 4 = Content Print, are also based off the [Basic Paragraph] also.
I created these for how it gets put/displayed into my Table of Contents.
Level 1 = Content Print
Level 2 = Content Print
Level 3 = Content Print
Level 4 = Content Print

These are all the paragraph styles that I am using so far.
I have been basing each of these off my [Basic Paragraph] when I have created them.
I understand what you mean by Root now. I did not use a root structure when I created these because I figured that I did not need to. I thought if they were all the same as the [Basic Paragraph] with only a font change, I would understand what they were. That is what I titled them like I did.

I have not created the paragraph style titled ‘Ricks basic paragraph’ yet.
Should I duplicate that the [Basic Paragraph] and name it ‘Ricks basic paragraph’
and use this as my default style for the document moving forward?

Am I doing things correctly now?

Thank you.

Rick

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Don't use the default [Basic Paragraph] at all. Pretend it doesn't exist.

Create your own body-text style NOT based on it. I wouldn't call it "basic-anything" at all since a good body style is a lot more than basic settings. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Attroll 

You can create your styles structure as per my screenshot - either both levels as Green or Cyan rects.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

This is a typical naming system I use. Note the Body_Master style--that is the style the other body styles are based on. (Unlike Parent [Master] pages, there is not visual indication of based-on styles.)

I start all body-related styles with "Body_" so the end user knows they are related to the master style, even if they don't know what the style is for. It also "clumps" them together when sorted by name. I used to use folders, but styles can get moved out of the folders, causing confusion. 

[Attroll]

Dave
I liked your idea and went and renamed all of my stytles.
I will attach my new structure.

You also suggested never to use the default [Basic Paragraph] at all. Pretend it doesn't exist.
I want to do this, so I created a new style that I am going to use for my default. I am named it ‘Body_default’ for the time being.

Now I need to somehow move the items that I have all set using the [Basic Paragraph] to my new style of ‘Body_default’. This way that nothing is using [Basic Paragraph].
Can this be done, if so, could you point me in the right direction on how to do this, please.

Thank you.

Rick

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Hi @Attroll Unless someone knows a script, the only way I know of is to do it one style at a time. 

(Reminder--you can right-click on a style to edit it without actually applying it to your text.)

Generally, my heading styles are based on the level above it, but Heading_1 is not based on any style. I also create separate styles for the styles used in tables. So, generally, the only thing based on my Body_default would be other body styles. Of course, I don't know enough about your project to make a recommendation--just describing how I do it.

Dave

[Attroll]

Dave

Right now, I have 99% of my document set up using [Basic Paragraph].

I have 436 pages of information on it to go through and change to my new style that I created.

Probably going through it one page at a time and doing it manually would be the best way because I also have some overrides on the style. This way it will get done correctly.

However, before I do this, I need to address another question on something I need to tackle and see if this is possible to do in InDesign. This way I can do this at the same time changing to my new paragraph style.

I have posted that question separately here

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/first-line-of-paragraph-not-indented-but-all-par...

Thank you everyone that has chimed in and helped here.

Rick

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

You can use Find/Replace to change the [Basic Paragraph] to your Body_default styles. This shouldn't remove overrides but work on a copy of your file.

However, why overrides? Those should be Character styles. You can find/change overrides to character styles too. As far as names goes, I name my char. styles how they are used--not what they look like (same concept as paragraph styles). Therefore, I avoid styles named "bold", "Italic" and "bolditalic". 

[Attroll]

I have learned a lot just from this conversation.

I have not delved a lot into characters styles yet.
Currently most of my overrides have been simple easy ones, like making a word in bold or underlining a word or sentence.
It seems so much easier to me to do a Ctrl+Shift+b while I am typing on the keyboard than for me to reach over to grab the mouse and clicking on a character style set up for bold.

It takes away from my concentration of typing. I am not a good typer and I look at the keyboard a lot while I am typing. I hate having to look up at the screen and look away from the keyboard at the screen in the middle of typing a sentence and grab the mouse then and find the character style that I created for bold. I would like to be able to not have to touch the mouse that much and look away from my keyboard while I am typing.
If that makes any sense.

Am I looking at this in the wrong perspective?

PS; Thank you very much for you patients with me.

Rick

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

You can apply a keyboard command to Character and Paragraph styles. Unfortunately, because InDesign has so many existing shortcuts (last I heard, over 1200), you can use a modifyer key and a numeric keypad number. For example, Control-1. It has to be from the numeric keypad, not the top row of a regular keyboard. 

[Attroll]

Thank you. I will look into this.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Attroll 

If you send me your file - privately, please click my nickname - I can use my IDT and help you "fix" your document.