Removing Paragraph & Character Styles

Removing Paragraph & Character Styles

What is Local Formatting (Also Called an Override)?

Local formatting occurs when you apply direct formatting to text that already has a paragraph or character style applied, creating what designers call an "override." This typically happens when you manually adjust text properties—such as changing font size, applying bold formatting, adjusting tracking, or modifying color—on top of an existing style. While overrides can be useful for quick adjustments, they can create consistency issues in professional documents and make style management more complex. Understanding how to identify and remove these overrides is essential for maintaining clean, professionally formatted documents.

Removing Local Formatting (Overrides)

The key to managing overrides effectively is recognizing when they exist and knowing how to remove them systematically. InCopy provides clear visual indicators and multiple methods for clearing local formatting.

1. Select the text containing overrides, or position your cursor anywhere within the affected paragraph.

2. Open the Paragraph Styles panel (Type > Paragraph Styles).

3. When text contains local formatting that differs from the applied style—such as manual bold, italic, or tracking adjustments—a + symbol will appear to the right of the style name, as shown below. This plus sign is your immediate visual cue that overrides are present.

   TIP: Hover your cursor over the + symbol to reveal a tooltip that specifies exactly what formatting has been overridden, helping you make informed decisions about whether to keep or remove the changes.

   

4. To remove local formatting, click the Clear overrides button located at the bottom of the panel. This action will restore the text to match the original style specifications exactly.

   NOTE: The scope of override removal depends on your selection. If you've selected specific text, only those characters will revert to the style's formatting, while the remainder of the paragraph maintains its current formatting. However, if you simply position your cursor within the paragraph without selecting text, the entire paragraph will be cleaned of all local formatting.

   HINT: For even faster workflow, you can Option–click (Mac) or ALT–click (Windows) directly on the style name to instantly remove all local formatting from the entire paragraph, regardless of text selection.

Removing a Character Style

Character styles work differently from paragraph styles and require a distinct approach for removal. Since character styles are applied to specific text selections rather than entire paragraphs, the removal process focuses on returning formatted text to its underlying paragraph style.

1. Select the text that currently has a character style applied. You'll typically notice this text appears different from the surrounding paragraph text.

2. Open the Character Styles panel (Type > Character Styles).

3. The panel will display the name of the currently applied character style. To remove the character style and return the text to the underlying paragraph formatting, click on [None] at the top of the panel. This action strips away the character-level formatting while preserving the paragraph style's properties.