"Underlying properties" is actually the same thing as Default Paragraph
Font, which would not include any direct formatting that had been applied to
the text, so your character styles are behaving as designed.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"wildetudor" wrote in message
...
Thanks for your help again DeanH, I only now had time to try what you
suggested, and it seems the style, even if based on 'underlying
properties',
still overrides direct formatting which is non-conflictual with the style
definition, i.e. style is only supposed to color text in blue, but it
actually also removes previously existing word underlinings.. Is there
anything else I can try?

"wildetudor" wrote:

Thanks very much, it indeed did help.

"DeanH" wrote:

Modify the Character style's "Style based on" property to "(Underlying
properties)".
This will allow you to add the Blue font and keep the Underline, but if
the
text is green (say) this will be overridden by the Blue of the
Character
style.
Hope this helps
DeanH

"wildetudor" wrote:

When I apply to a selection of text a style which is of the type
Character,
it seems to overwrite any formatting which was done directly to that
selection.

For example, if I have a word underlined in my selection, and I apply
a
Character style which implies making the text blue, then the
selection
becomes blue AND the word's underlining disappears.

Is it not possible for a style to just *add* formatting to a
selection,
without also removing previous direct formatting?