Friday, September 07, 2007

InDesign's Break Link to Style command

Ever have this happen to you? You copy a text frame in InDesign CS2 or CS3, and then paste it into another InDesign document, and the text formatting completely changes on the pasted copy?

The most likely cause of this is a paragraph or character style (or styles) that is applied to text in the source file (perhaps the pesky Basic Paragraph style). If this same style appears in the destination document with different formatting attributes, the pasted text will take on the attributes of the destination document.

The solution? Select the text in the source document, and choose Break Link to Style from the Paragraph Styles panel menu. Next, choose Break Link to Style from the Character Styles panel menu. This will "unapply" the style from the text, but leave the formatting intact. Now you can copy the text frame and paste it into the destination document, and the formatting will survive the trip.

4 comments:

John said...

thank you!

Lance Marburger said...

How do I break existing links between InCopy and InDesign short of deleting the text boxes after I copy the content. I have picked up a file from a previous design group that requires me to check in and check out every time I open and try to edit the content.

Keith Gilbert said...

@Lance, if you want to completely eliminate InCopy from the workflow, and just take over all editing and files with InDesign, this is easy. Just select all the .icml files you see in the InDesign Links panel, and choose "unlink" from the Links panel menu.

Lance Marburger said...

Thanks Keith. I did a little more research and found that option to solve the problem. I appreciate your response though.