Cross references in Microsoft rtf file conflicting with InDesign Paragraph styles

[rachelw31797967]

Hi,

I am placing and linking an rtf file (from Microsoft Word) into InDesign CC2019.

I apply a blanket 'clear all overrides' when I link the text. This resolves any overrides.

The rtf text includes author-date references that are generated by the software Endnote.

A stylesheet 'RW 2bullets' is applied to this text in Word.

When the text is placed into InDesign the text reverts to 'Normal' with overrides in InDesign ('Normal' being a style that comes across from Word).

When the author-date references are removed from the text, the text retains its style of RW 2bullets.

Text in InDesign with author-date references, incorrect 'Normal' style is automatically applied:

Text in InDesign without author-date references, correct RW2 bullets is retained from the rtf document:

This seems to be an issue with all text that has a cross-reference in the rtf file (e.g. cross-reference to a figure/section or a cross-reference to an reference that is connected to the software Endnote).

I removed all other kinds of cross-references (e.g. to sections) to resolve this elsewhere.

Author-date references are included elsewhere in the document, and 'Normal' is applied to that text also. I resolved this style issue by changing 'Normal' to the same as my body copy style. Therefore, 'Normal' is still applied to the text but looks the same as the rest of the body copy.

Is there a way of retaining the author-date Endnote references in the rtf file, for the text not to revert to 'Normal' and retain the applied stylesheet?

Thank you.

[Peter Villevoye · Accepted solution]

I'm a but unsure about understanding the situation and scenario you're describing. But are you sure you have applied the style RW2 correctly in Word ? InDesign and Word are very similar and neatly integrated with eachother when it comes to using Styles. But there's One Big Difference: a style in Word can become both a Paragraph or Character Style, upon applying to a certain text, while in InDesign a style is either a Paragraph or Character Style from 'birth' !

So if you accidentally don't apply a Word style to the complete paragraph, e.g. by selecting just a few words (as you would in InDesign), or overlooking to have the Paragraph pilcrow selected, it will show up as a Character Style in InDesign for that text part, within a Normal styled paragraph.

Note: the Dutch "kop" means "Heading".

The directly placed text in InDesign:

So if a style has been applied to some text, the style becomes a Character Style, and will show up as such in InDesign, and might be overruling the Paragraph Style in place. Keep in mind: clearing overrides leaves applied Character Styles intact, because that is considered a correct way to structure text ! You have to go to Character Styles and explicitly set all text to No Style to get rid of these nasties...

[rachelw31797967]

Hi Peter,

Thank you very much for taking the time to look at the issue and for explaining the difference between Word and InDesign styles. This is very useful advice and I will remember this for future projects.

However, I have applied the style in Word including the pilcrow and the issue still remains (see image 1 and 2 below). There isn't an issue when I remove the Endnote in-text author-date citations [e.g. (Sless 2008)] (see image 3 below). So, I still think the in-text citations are causing an issue when they come through from Word.

I think I probably need to start afresh with raw text in Word and apply new styles, then place linked .rtf file into a a new InDesign document without any Paragraph or Character styles and see if the problem still occurs.

Image 1: text selected in Word with RW bullets style applied to text and pilrow.

Image 2: text selected in InDesign showing Character Style (none) and Paragraph Style (Normal+).

Image 3: text in InDesign after author-date citations [e.g. (Sless 2008)] have been removed from the text (bullet style is applied not 'Normal' and no character style applied.