Navigation:  Styles > Character styles > Scope of character styles

Did you change a character style and nothing happened in some of the sections of text that were assigned this style? This happens because these sections of text were subsequently reformatted manually.

An example:

Let's assume that you define a style with the Arial font and apply it. If, for example, you now change the style's font to Times New Roman, all sections that are formatted in this style will change accordingly.

However: If you subsequently selected a completely different font in one of these sections of text via the command group Home | Character, the change to the character style no longer affects this section. That is to say, manually applied character formatting takes precedence over styles.

If you want the affected section of text to be "freed" from its manual formatting, choose the command Reset character formatting on the ribbon tab Home | group Character. The section of text now has the formatting specified in the character style again.

Tip: You can also reset the character formatting using the shortcut keys Ctrl+Space.