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I’ve been trying out InDesign’s “Next Style” feature recently in an attempt to automate text styling and would like to find an answer to a question that occurred to me while doing so.

I don’t understand why “Next Styles” are not applied when pasting several paragraphs inside a text box. With the “first” paragraph style of a "Next Styles" “chain” applied to a text frame, why are all pasted paragraphs styled according to the preferences set for the first paragraph, instead of following the sequence set up in the "chain"?

Is there a more efficient way to achieve what I’ve been trying to do using “next styles”? I just can’t imagine that applying paragraph styles manually to each paragraph within a text frame is the simplest of options.

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  • It's a bug. Paragraph (and Object) styles apply randomly to pasted (or placed/flowed) text. Type it manually and it will work.
    – Jakob Jingleheimer
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 14:04

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"Next Style" only works if you hit the return key. Very annoying, I agree. If your first paragraph has the oddball style, you may be better off making everything your second style and manually applying the style to the first para.

You could also do a S/R such that every paragraph with a tab is Style B, and your first para doesn't have a tab, or some similar GREP configuration.

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    Not entirely true. With a text selection, you can "apply this, then Next Style" from the styles menu. Another option (which I've never used, so I may be remembering wrong) is to apply the text styles with an Object style.
    – Jongware
    Commented Aug 28, 2016 at 21:29
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    @RadLexus ooh, good to know! That still falls under "applying styles manually," though. Is there a way to do it when pasting or importing?
    – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum
    Commented Aug 29, 2016 at 10:03
  • @RadLexus Please post your comment as an answer I'll mark it as correct. I wish there wasn't that extra step of "apply this, then Next Style", but if it's as good as it gets, what can we do?
    – gmorissette
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 0:06

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