How to Apply Styles Quickly to Formatted Text in InDesign
Learn how to take InDesign text that has formatting already applied and assign styles to it, using the Find/Change feature.
In this InDesign how-to video, Julie Shaffer shows how to take text with existing formatting—either from previous use in InDesign or from a Word Import—and assign current styles to it. She shows that by looking at the formatting that is unique to selected text, you can use Find/Change to find text with that formatting, apply your desired styles, and even save queries to easily repeat the search operation.
This video is an excerpt from Julie’s “Essential Prep and Cleanup Techniques” session at our InDesign + Long Documents Summit. Check out this and all of our events on our events page.
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This article was last modified on August 29, 2025
This article was first published on May 31, 2024
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