how to revert to template style for text
 

If I paste in some text that has it's own format, what is the easiest way to change it to the style of that row in my document. I'm not sure what "Clear style" is supposed to do, but that isn't it.

This can depend on a couple things. If you have 'Automatic Level Styles' on under the Format menu, then the pasted styles can be promoted depending on the content of your file when you paste. If you want to know more about this, let me know.

The Clear Style command will remove any local styles. If you have the auto level styles feature off, Clear Style should remove everything that was brought in by the paste.

If Clear Style doesn't work, then you need to highlight the text and use the Style Attributes inspector. In that inspector you'll see all the styles effecting that text. Click the 'x' to the right of each entry that you want to remove.

However, you can avoid all this if you use the other paste option 'Paste With Current Style' which will paste the clipboard data without any styling so it takes on the style of the row you're pasting to.