Nested styles are not applied

[Grundoon Groundhog]

I've added a nested style to a paragraph style: one bold italic word at the beginning of the paragraph. But it never shows up as bold italic, and I have to apply the style with the character menu by hand. No style other than the paragraph style (which includes the nested style) is applied.

[amaarora]

Hi,

Unless you post screenshots of the paragraph style you have set, (which included nested style settings and the character styles defination) it is practically impossible to understand what might be causing the problem.

If you are sure everything is set correctly, you can start by reading this Drop caps and nested styles in InDesign  and cleaning your cache and preferences

Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences

-Aman

[Grundoon Groundhog]

The nested style is ONE word with a different style than the rest of the paragraph.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

Here's a screen shot; I'm not sure if it's what you requested.

[Barb Binder]

What I can't see from your screen shot:

1. Is that paragraph in the background using 8 Note as the paragraph style?
2. Does the character style work outside of nested styles? If you select a string of text and assign the character style called Note or Source, does the text become bold and italic?

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Here are the steps:

1. Select the paragraph.
2. Assign the paragraph style (i.e., Body)
3. Remove any cell styles (select the paragraph and Alt/Opt click on [None] in the Character Style panel)
4. Select the first word and format it as bold and italic.
   
5. With the word still selected, save it as a character style. (Alt/Opt click the new style button outlined in orange above. Give it a name and click on OK).
   
   
   
6. Remove the cell style (select the paragraph and Alt/Opt click on [None] in the Character Style panel). The style is available and works when you test it but it is not assigned to the paragraph.
   
7. Edit the paragraph style and click on Drop Caps and Nested Styles.
8. Click on New Nested Style and set the style up as shown below. Turn preview on, and click in the empty area below the style name to preview the format.
   

[Erica Gamet]

Also, assuming you followed all the steps (and Barb's advice) and it's still not working, did you create the character style from within the Nested Styles/Paragraph Style dialog box? I'm aware of a long-standing bug when creating Character Styles from within the GREP Styles pane...where it just plain doesn't work. Try creating the char style via the char styles panel and choosing it from the nested styles dialog box.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

Yes, the paragraph style is 8Note and yes I created the Bold word in the Character menu, then tried to apply it. Yes, it applies to a string of text. I've now changed the style but will try Barb's advice. Thanks.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

Now that I've made the style of the single word small caps it seems to be functioning correctly.

[Barb Binder]

Ok, so it's working correctly now? Do you need any other help on this?

[Grundoon Groundhog]

Well, in that I gave up and changed the style, yes. I wondered if it was because the Word document styles were overriding the InDesign styles, but that wasn't it. I'll try your earlier instructions later. Thanks!