InDesign

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Override character and paragraph styles

When you apply a paragraph style, character styles and other previous formatting remain intact. After you apply a style, you can override any of its settings by applying formatting that’s not part of the style. When formatting that is not part of a style is applied to text with that style applied, it is called an override. When you select text with an override, a plus sign (+) appears next to the style name. In character styles, an override is displayed only if the applied attribute is part of the style. For example, if a character style only changes text color, applying a different font size to the text does not appear as an override.

You can clear character styles and formatting overrides when you apply a style. You can also clear overrides from a paragraph to which a style has been applied.

If a style has a plus sign (+) next to it, hold the mouse pointer over the style to view a description of the override attributes.

Preserve or remove overrides when applying paragraph styles

  • To apply a paragraph style and preserve character styles, but remove overrides, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you click the name of the style in the Paragraph Styles panel.
  • To apply a paragraph style and remove both character styles and overrides, hold down Alt+Shift (Windows) or Option+Shift (Mac OS) as you click the name of the style in the Paragraph Styles panel.
Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the style in the Paragraph Styles panel, and then choose an option from the context menu. You can then clear overrides, character styles, or both while applying the style.

Clear paragraph style overrides

  1. Select the text containing the overrides. You can even select multiple paragraphs with different styles.
  2. In the Paragraph Styles panel, do any of the following:

    • To remove paragraph and character formatting, click the Clear Overrides icon , or choose Clear Overrides from the Paragraph Styles panel.

    • To remove character overrides, but preserve paragraph formatting overrides, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) as you click the Clear Overrides icon.

    • To remove paragraph-level overrides, but preserve character-level overrides, in the Paragraph Styles panel, hold down Shift+Ctrl (Windows) or Shift+Command (Mac OS) as you click the Clear Overrides icon.

    Note: When you clear overrides, paragraph-level overrides are removed from the entire paragraph, even if only part of the paragraph is selected. Character-level overrides are removed only from the selection.

    Clearing overrides does not remove character style formatting. To remove character style formatting, select the text containing the character style, and then click [None] in the Character Styles panel.