Chad wrote us about an InCopy problem that’s not limited to InCopy; I’ve been asked about it by InDesign users as well (both programs use the same coding for handling text and styles):
Have either of you ever run into a situation where InCopy on a whim doesn’t show the plus sign next to a paragraph style when local formatting has been applied? I have been running into it lately and can’t seem to find a common link as to why. If I click on and off of the affected text a few times, it will eventually appear, but it’s very frustrating.
After asking him about version numbers and if this was a problem in more than one document or workstation (to help narrow it down a bit), I thought about him at his computer and how the plus sign “eventually appears” after a spate of clicking on and off the text. Maybe he wasn’t clicking in the right area?
In InDesign and InCopy (and QuarkXPress for that matter), you won’t see the plus sign appear next to a style name unless your cursor is blinking smack in the locally-formatted characters thesmselves or you’ve selected some of them. If the insertion bar is blinking elsewhere in the same paragraph you won’t see a plus symbol.
Chad replied with effusive thanks that he had overlooked that subtle nuance (easy to do), and I was “probably right.” I’m taking a chance I was by posting this before getting his confirmation, so let’s keep our fingers crossed! Heh.
Tip: If you select the whole paragraph (quadruple-click is fastest), you should see a plus sign even if only one character has local formatting applied. That’s my quick test to see if there’s anything snarky going on. Or, if I’m positive I don’t want any local formatting, I Option/Alt-click on the style name to “cleanse” the paragraph without even bothering to check for local formatting.
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on July 11, 2006
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