Loading and Assigning Paragraph Styles from one Document to Another Document

[Michelle Beth]

I have multiple documents that have the same paragraph and character style names. I have one document with updated P/C styles that I'm using as my parent document. I load the parent document pargraph and character styles into the other documents and update them this way. For character styles I can choose 'Use Incoming Definition' under the 'Conflict with Existing Style' column and it automatically updates the styles in the document I am working in. But I can't do this for Paragraph Styles. At times I can even get all Paragraph Styles set to 'Use Incoming Defition' but inDesign still leaves the original styles unupdated.

Instead, I delete each paragraph style, and then select the paragraph style with the same name from the parent document after loading all of them in, in order to update the original document paragraph style.

Is there a workflow or method I'm unaware of that would make this less tedius? Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Mike Witherell]

Are you familiar with loading styles using the Paragraph Style panel menu button and choosing Load All Text Styles (or Load Paragraph Styles; either one) and bringing them in that way?

Or are you placing a Word document with styles?

[Michelle Beth]

I'm using the Paragraph Style panel menu and choosing Load All Styles.

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Is there a reason that you are not starting work on a template with styles already intact?

[Michelle Beth]

We did use a template, but the problem is that the styles had to be changed several years afterwards because of Adobe's removal of Type 1 font support.

[Willi Adelberger]

Not Adobe removed T1 support, the OS developer did. Adobe announced in the lat 1990s that T1 will be terminated one day. If someone is surprised now, it is not Adobe’s fault.

Why do you not update the styles before working with the template.

[Michelle Beth]

This appears to have derailed into Type 1 support. The styles on the template are updated. The documents I'm updating were created before the template was updated however. My question is if it is possible to load paragraph styles and auto assign them to a document with styles that have the same name. It appears there isn't a way to do this, so I'll continue my current method.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Michelle:

Let's get you back on track.

I load the parent document pargraph and character styles into the other documents and update them this way. For character styles I can choose 'Use Incoming Definition' under the 'Conflict with Existing Style' column and it automatically updates the styles in the document I am working in. But I can't do this for Paragraph Styles. At times I can even get all Paragraph Styles set to 'Use Incoming Defition' but inDesign still leaves the original styles unupdated.

I set up a simple, sample file and it is working for me as expected. I wonder if you are dealing with overrides? Do you work with othe Style Highlighter enabled? Or do you need to rebuild preferences to straighten out erratic behavior? Or am I misunderstanding the question? 

~Barb

[Peter Spier]

A perhaps faster option would be to create a Book file, then add one new doc for reference and the old files that need changing. You should be able to synch the styles all at once.