Adobe InDesign CS4 – Override Removal
When you apply a paragraph style by clicking its name, no overrides are removed. You must either choose Apply YourStyleName, Clear Overrides or Option-click/Alt-click the style name. The Object Style panel, however, is pre-set to remove overrides. By default, the Clear Overrides When Applying Style option is selected in the panel menu, meaning that any object formatting that does not match a defined attribute of the object style is removed in favor of the style’s setting for that attribute. However, since not all attributes have to be assigned to a style, that doesn’t mean every unique attribute of the object is cleared—only those specifically activated in the object style. Overrides are cleared by default when object styles are applied.
For paragraph styles, Shift-Option-clicking/Shift-Alt-clicking a style name removes every attribute that doesn’t match the paragraph style’s definition. The same keyboard shortcut works for object styles, but it’s potentially as dangerous as it is convenient. Since an object style need not include settings for every object attribute, reducing an object to only the style’s defined attributes can have unintended results.
Text frame has some attributes (fill, text inset, paragraph style, etc.) applied to it, but no object style assigned to it. If an object style that only includes text wrap options is applied to that frame by clicking the style name in the panel, the text wrap setting will be added, but nothing else about the object changes. When the frame is selected, the highlighted object style in the panel will not have a plus after it because the unique attributes are not considered overrides.
If the object style is applied by Shift-Option-clicking/Shift-Alt-clicking the style name or choosing Apply Style, Clear Attributes Not Defined By Style from the panel menu, the frame’s fill and text inset will be removed because text wrap is the only attribute actually defined by the object style. The text within the frame may appear unchanged, but if the paragraph is selected, the Paragraph Styles panel reveals that the style is no longer applied. Although the text formatting is preserved, it’s reduced to No Paragraph Style with overrides.
The only undefined formatting that is preserved when an object style is applied with the Clear Attributes Not Defined By Style option is character styles.