How to apply paragraph style font? (or how to find direct formatting?)

[ManyWords]

I have a book of many chapters. Originally it was primarily written in Arial, but I now intend on changing to Georgia. I have encountered a massive problem however.

To change the font, I returned to the template in which all chapters are written. In this template, I changed the font in the paragraph style of the root style (top of hierarchy - in my case called “Cz Root.”) from Arial to Georgia.

It initially seemed like a success, until I started to find random characters retaining the Arial font. I have no idea why this is happening. The most frustrating thing is that it’s really difficult to find these characters, but I know they’re all over the from selecting random bits of text and seeing the toolbar font display go from “Georgia” to [blank], indicating there are non-Georgia fonts used in the selected text.

I have tried the following solutions which either don’t work or are too problematic:

1. Reapply paragraph style (either through Toolbar “Update Selected Styles” or re-clicking the given paragraph style in the Styles sidebar). The Arial font characters remain unchanged.
2. Using the Find and Replace tool to find Arial font cases. For some reason, most of my text is being highlighted as Arial, when only a tiny proportion of it is indeed Arial. Plus, I fear changing the text in this way will be the equivalent of applying direct formatting which I’m trying to avoid as it can cause more problems down the line.
3. Apply Georgia style to all text with direct formatting. (select text > click on font display in toolbar > select Georgia) This seems to work, but same as above, I should be avoiding direct formatting. Plus, this causes me to lose the occasional instances of intentionally using a different font.
4. Remove all direct formatting. (select text > right-click > Clear direct formatting) Works, however, this causes me to lose all italics in my text.
5. Find all instances of direct formatting and clear the direct formatting of Arial characters accordingly. This would be ideal as it seems the least risky. However, somebody already asked how to do this with no proper answer.

I want to find the best way of fixing this, either if somebody can resolve the problems with the ideal solutions, or give me another solution. Bear in mind, it is a book of several hundred pages which I’m currently proofreading, so I need something efficient and reliable.

I’ve attached a sample of what is happening. Maybe I’m missing something.
Direct Formatting Issue.odt (21.9 KB)

Thank you.

(edited typos)

[EarnestAl]

In 25.2 to see direct formatting, click Format - Spotlight and select direct formatting. See Spotlight Styles

This gives you the opportunity to set your italics and bold as character styles too

[Edit]
The entire sample is direct formatted. Make a copy of you document and play with that.

Italics could mean different things, emphasis, quote, foreign word, etc., normally you would create different character styles but you could just use the character style Emphasis.

1. Click Edit > Find and Replace
2. Select the Find field, click the Format button and select Italic. Nothing else
3. Click Find All
4. In the Character styles pane, double-click Emphasis to apply the character style.
5. Repeat for Bold and use Strong Emphasis character style, and for Bold Italic (create a new character style beforehand)
6. Make character styles for any other direct formatting that you want to keep and do the same.
7. Select all and press Ctrl+M. You might get surprises as the short sample has so much direct formatting that presumably permeates the document.

Play with this sample first to see how it might work.
Direct Formatting Issue121075EA.odt (49.9 KB)

BTW it might have been quicker to use the existing style structure and modifying mainly Default Paragraph Style and Heading style to achieve the appearance that you wanted. Nevertheless, you have recreated much of the inheritance structure so carry on with that.

[koyotak]

@ManyWords

change the font, I returned to the template in which all chapters are written

If the thick book looks good in Arial font, then: «Never chance a running system!».
Your thick book contains a hodgepodge of manual (direct) styles, which – as already mentioned – becomes apparent when you want to change the font, the typeface style, or the typeface. That looks like a lot of work.
I can only recommend copying everything and pasting it into a new virgin layout as plain text. It’s best to use a professional layout program for a book, because both ‘LO-WRiTER’ and ‘MS-WORD’ are completely unsuitable for creating a good book and practically tempt you to misuse the typography.