🚀 go-pugleaf

Krule: 

...  i must retain the paragraphs and some of the formatting of the WORD docs.   

I'm trying to visual what you need to do. First, when you say you must retain "some of the formating", it would be helpful to know what you are talking about. In terms of paragraphs, even when you do a  "paste", your paragraphs will still be intact, they aren't going to disappear in ID. 

Try this: Click on Type>View Hidden Characters. This will show you where your paragraph markers are located. As you will see, they are still there. Don't delete the paragraph marks and you'll retain you paragraphs. You'll also see if there are unwanted spaces, extra paragraph marks, etc. in your pasted text so you can clean things up. 

Next, highlight the paragraph style you want and create a style from it (or start from scratch and make new paragraph and character styles styles). Also, be sure and choose if you want *single line* or *multiple line* composer and *optical* or *metric* spacing (read the manual for details on these options - this is key to making your type look good and ID gives you great control). This will get you started on customizing the type to your liking. 

To clear your pasted text of residual, underling styles so you can start fresh, highlight the text you want to format and hold down the alt key when you click to apply the style. This will apply the style and remove any underlying formating info that comes in from Word. Since you have already set the style the way you want it, you don't need anything from Word. As long as your style doesn't show a plus sign next to it when you place your curser in the paragraph, your style is clear of extraneous formating. 

Last, use paragraph styles for the bulk of what you are doing. Character formating is best used for formating inside of a paragraph style. For example, words in a paragraph that need to be in italics. Later on, if you decide that you want all italic words in this paragraph style to be red, then you need only change the character specs of this style later on. 

I hope I understood your question and answered it clearly. 

Pat