Character style has a little + after style

[mark_jewell@adobeforums.com]

Sometimes when I try to change some copy to a particular character style, the font won't fully change. Instead I get a small + after the style. How do I force the text to change to the character style I've chosen.
Indesign 2.02, windows.

[Bob_Levine]

Hold the alt key down while selecting the style. That will override the
local formatting.

Bob

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

Character styles trump paragraph styles; but direct formatting trumps all else. The plus sign might be something you want to get rid of; but often you want to keep things like bold and italic which show up as a plus sign indicating attributes in addition to the paragraph and/or character style. Many in this forum replace all direct formatting with a character style doing the same thing. This maximizes your control over all the text.

Mike Witherell

[mark_jewell@adobeforums.com]

Thanks! I knew there had to be an easy way to override that.
MJ

[Adam_Hodge@adobeforums.com]

This is totally off the topic, but, I grew up next door to a Mark Jewell, in Toronto on Pine Crescent. I know this is a shot in the dark, but you wouldn't be him, would you?

If not, you can feel free to ignore this message.

Thanks.

[Megan_Larson@adobeforums.com]

HELP!! I have a document that I am working on...I am using character styles...I am getting the little plus sign...I am alt+clicking...it isn't going away. This always worked in Quark, now I am banging my head against the wall. I have looked in the InDesign Bible, Indesing Help and now here. What do you do when you can't get rid of the plus and use the character style to override all manual styles.

TIA,
Megan

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

Is the + only against the character style or also against the paragraph style? Try alt-clicking the paragraph style name.

Dave

[Megan_Larson@adobeforums.com]

I'm not using paragraph styles right now, just character styles.

[Lisa_Spike@adobeforums.com]

I was having this same problem. I had a paragraph style with a "+", and a character style selected that I didn't want. I alt-clicked on the paragraph style, choose "no character style" (the + would go away), and as soon as I started typing, it would GO BACK to the character style. In my case it was inside a table. I'm interested in hearing advice on this one too. It was driving me crazy! I ended up erasing the contents of the cell and selecting no style and retyping it again.

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

Ah well there's your problem. Character styles are designed to augment paragraph styles. If you use them on unstyled text the result will usually be a mess.

Dave

[Megan_Larson@adobeforums.com]

Ok, so I am going back and adding paragraph styles. I am confused though. In Quark, you could associate paragraph and character styles, but in ID it looks like you can just associate paragraph styles to paragraph styles and character styles with character styles. How do you link, say, "Body Text" character style with "Body Text" paragraph style?

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

Quark and InDesign work differently in this regard. InDesign's approach is much more flexible for the vast majority of situations but it does mean you have to unlearn some XPress habits.

Dave