Importing word using indesign styles adds + sign... Why?

[Guest]

Its a little difficult to explain this in English since i have a Dutch indesign version but here goes....

I have been importing word documents into indesign for years now, but ever since an update a long time ago it crashed every time i tried to do it again.
I worked around it but now i'm fed up.....  I have the most recent indesign update now and though it doesn't crash anymore. It adds attributes to my paragraph styles.
So this '+'sign appears next to them. If i overwrite them again with current style then its perfect.

But why does it add a '+' sign in the first place? What am i missing??? Why can't it just overwrite the word style with the right paragraph style?

Thanks for any suggestions...

[Barb Binder]

Are you using style mapping when you place the file?

[Guest]

Yes i assigned every paragraph style to the right indesign paragraph style individually. But it still adds other other attributes for some reason.
it is possible it's related to character styles at all??

[Barb Binder]

Good question. What attributes does it add?

[Guest]

It mainly changes font size, or it changes it to the right font attributes but picks the wrong font... very odd...

At the moment I already deleted all existing character and paragraph styles and added the paragraph styles again one at a time.
Which seems to give me better to near perfect results. Except the rare occasional change in font size or small font attributes changes.

Since i don't have any character styles yet now i don't see how it can be linked to them.

I seem to have it under control for now but it's just pretty frustrating that i have to do it all again since it worked perfectly before...
And i don't want to start over every time there is an update... :S As this is already the second time it 'broke' after an update.

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

I use the style mapping feature all the time as well. I do find that the typeface doesn't always map correctly, even when everything else does. (I blame Word and the authors using Word, although that may be incorrect. )

Part of my normal workflow is import all of the Word docs on the pages, and the head up to Type > Find Fonts. I will always find between 3 and 15 unexpected fonts in the list. I just do a Find/Change in there to remap to the intended fonts.

One helpful new feature that you may have missed is that you can click the + button in the Para and Char Styles panels to toggle on override highlighting. Once I have completed the layout and I think I'm done, this is really easy way to locate anything I might have missed.

[Guest]

Oh my gosh, I knew nothing about this override highlighting feature XD that will indeed be very helpful! Thank you

Good to know i'm not alone in this XD And yes there's often at least one writer who doesn't use the word styles correctly which of course doesn't help either

[Barb Binder]

Right? When I was young, I used to try to educate my writers. With age, I have learned to accept imperfect files.

Glad the highlighting will help you. I think it's an awesome tool.