When I click in the styles panel to apply a style (defined with save all formatting selected), Scrivener often fails to apply the paragraph format.
From what I can see you’ve:
- Assigned a paragraph style.
- Added direct formatting overrides to the styled paragraphs.
Anything past that point, that you are trying to achieve, is not an actual event from the software’s perspective, like setting Times New Roman font to text that is already Times New Roman. Nothing happens because nothing has changed…
Step two above does not change the fact that it is assigned to that style. You can have formatting inside of styles without losing the assignment. So clicking on the same style over and over isn’t doing anything, because clicking on that is a way of assigning a selection to that style—and it’s already assigned to that style.
- Assigned a paragraph style (left-aligned)
- Centered the paragraph
- Assigned the paragraph style again
- The paragraph remained centered
- It should have gone left-aligned
Step 3 is not “doing nothing”.
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
My point is that you can’t assign the same style to something twice, it’s already assigned, so yes step three is doing nothing. As far as I’m aware, this is on purpose so that custom formatting doesn’t get lost. If you really want it to, you should just quickly reset the paragraph to no style and then back.
When I do that (for about similar reasons), I end up losing highlight if any.
So, instead of using “no style”, when needed I assign the concerned paragraphs a dummy style that is “save paragraph style”, and then (step 2) the style of which I really want those paragraphs to be.
That should not happen unless you select text. The behaviour for the No Style command is documented in §17.3.5, Removing Styles from Text.
Yes, I forgot to mention that. It does so when I have the text selected.
But when I have a few paragraphs that I want to change the style of, I just randomly select text across those.
It’s the most convenient way to do it. (If not the only way.)
The issue I’m seeing isn’t what I’d call custom formatting (bold, italics, etc.) but paragraph formatting: spacing, alignment, centering.
- why would applying the desired style cause formatting losses?
- if not applying it is deliberate, why does it sometimes apply formatting?
- why does the format bar always apply formatting, but the styles pane does not?
- why does the style shortcut always apply formatting, but the styles pane does not?
- where is this behavior documented?
@Vincent_Vincent: Yes, I forgot to mention that. It does so when I have the text selected.
But when I have a few paragraphs that I want to change the style of, I just randomly select text across those.
I forgot to mention, there are two behaviours here that depend upon the context. If you do like you describe, just sweep a click and drag across some paragraphs so that the selection starts and ends somewhere within paragraphs, then the software treats this as a direct character-range level selection and interprets your No Style request as one applicable to character formatting.
However if the selection begins and ends with paragraphs then it is treated as a paragraph-only command. The easiest way to accomplish this with speed is to triple-click on paragraph one, and sweep down until the range of paragraphs is fully selected.
The issue I’m seeing isn’t what I’d call custom formatting (bold, italics, etc.) but paragraph formatting: spacing, alignment, centering.
That is an unusual and very narrow constraint to how these words can be used together, which are themselves quite broad. Formatting can even include the manner in which we structure data, not just in how we apply aesthetic options to it.
At any rate, the difference between the styles pane and the other methods is that the other methods act like toggles. When you use the shortcut or menus, pay heed to the Format Bar read-out: what you’ve done is synonymous with setting the paragraph to No Style, which of course nukes the alignment (and other factors as well if applicable).
I believe this is documented, but I’ve added a note to double-check.
Thanks for the info, Amber. 
I’m currently putting together a bunch of macros for a windows tablet, so selecting the whole of a paragraph is a tad complicated.
That’s why I’m rather using a dummy style to go to, prior to the desired style.
This way I can simply swipe my finger uncarefully across the paragraphs for which I want to assign a new style. It works pretty well.
If one of them is already of the style I want them all to be, doing things like that makes it no longer an issue.
Ah okay, well once you introduce macros into the equation, it doesn’t matter so much how many steps are in the sequence.