This isn’t a major issue, but I’d still like to figure it out.
I have a newsletter that I work on. I have a lot of paragraph styles created. When I am working on an issue, I typically have two ID files going. The first is the working document (newsletter); the second is a sort of “staging document” where I rough in the copy. All of the styles in the staging document were loaded directly from the working document. So they should be exactly the same. When I copy text from the staging document and paste it into the working document, the type looks correct, but the + symbol shows up after the style name indicating the type has been modified from the style. If I right-click on the style and choose “clear overrides,” the + symbol goes away. No changes are made to the text since none were needed. Like I said, not a big deal, but if you have any insight into what might be going on, I’d be curious.
I’m only guessing, but perhaps copying the text doesn’t copy the paragraph styles themselves — only the results of those styles. In other words, the document you paste the formatted text into doesn’t associate the formatting with a stylesheet; it simply copies the already formatted text without associating it with a stylesheet.
If InDesign did copy the stylesheets, I doubt you’d even need to recreate the stylesheets in the second document; InDesign would create them automatically as you pasted in the already styled text.
When you copy from one document to another it will match to the styles that are already there.
Any deviation to the style results in the plus, it could be Optical vs Metric tracking or another obscure setting that has any barely visible out come.
I always use Paste Without Formatting.
I use a script called Preptext, which auto adds character styles for the basics.
Then apply the style, then override any styles.
This seems a possible culprit. I’ll take a look. I did notice that the headlines and subheads come through without the +. So it’s just body copy related styles.