Change paragraph style without losing manual formatting

[jmt356]

I have a paragraph whose style is set to normal. When I set it to Body Text, I lose the manual formatting of the fonts (e.g., italics and underlining of some of the words). Is it possible to change the paragraph style of a paragraph without losing the manual formatting?

[HansV]

If less than 50% of the paragraph has direct (manual) formatting applied, the direct formatting should be preserved when you apply a different paragraph style.
If you reapply the paragraph style that the paragraph already had, it will remove all direct formatting.

[HansV]

An alternative is to use character styles to apply Italic, Underline etc. This should be preserved when you apply a different paragraph style, even if the character style has been applied to more than 50% of the text.

[Charles Kenyon]

Also note that if you apply the character style by selecting the text in the paragraph it will override direct formatting and may end up being applied as a character style if it is a "linked" style rather than a straight paragraph style. I generally keep the option to disable linked styles checked in my Manage Styles dialog.

[HansV]

Thanks for the additional information, Charles. I agree with disabling linked styles.