I've filed an issue here: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/4843

Example files and details to replicate the issue are included.

On Saturday, August 18, 2018 at 8:38:07 AM UTC+8, kronicd wrote:
>
> Yes,
>
> I understand what you're saying here. I will try to explain the issue that 
> I'm coming up against better here.
>
> When I use the DIV form eg:
> <div custom-style="Highlight">like/this</div> means things
>
> The style from the reference doc is used, however when I use the span form:
>
> <span custom-style="Highlight">like/this</span> means things
>
> Pandoc will then define a new style, with a duplicate name, techfont does 
> exist in the reference document. So in the reference document the following 
> style exists and is retained when DIVs are used:
>
>  <w:style w:customStyle="1" w:styleId="Highlight" w:type="paragraph">
>  <w:name w:val="Highlight"/>
>  <w:basedOn w:val="Normal"/>
>  <w:next w:val="Normal"/>
>  <w:link w:val="HighlightChar"/>
>  <w:qFormat/>
>  <w:rsid w:val="00F3388A"/>
>  <w:pPr>
>  <w:shd w:color="auto" w:fill="FFFF00" w:val="clear"/>
>  </w:pPr>
>  </w:style>
>  <w:style w:customStyle="1" w:styleId="HighlightChar" w:type="character">
>  <w:name w:val="Highlight Char"/>
>  <w:basedOn w:val="DefaultParagraphFont"/>
>  <w:link w:val="Highlight"/>
>  <w:rsid w:val="00F3388A"/>
>  <w:rPr>
>  <w:rFonts w:ascii="Helvetica Neue Light" w:hAnsi="Helvetica Neue Light"/>
>  <w:sz w:val="20"/>
>  <w:shd w:color="auto" w:fill="FFFF00" w:val="clear"/>
>  </w:rPr>
>  </w:style>
>
>
> However, when I use span elements in the source document, the following is 
> added to the styles of the output document:
>
>  <w:style w:customStyle="1" w:styleId="Highlight" w:type="character">
>  <w:name w:val="Highlight"/>
>  <w:basedOn w:val="BodyTextChar"/>
>  </w:style>
>
>
> So in the output document, the "Highlight" style exists multiples times 
> when I use span tags rather than div tags, as a result the originally 
> defined style in the reference document ends up being overridden.
>
> Is this a bug or intended behaviour?
>
> Cheers
>
> On Friday, August 17, 2018 at 5:44:12 PM UTC+8, BP Jonsson wrote:
>>
>> Well that is what `custom-style=NAME` does: it causes the docx writer to 
>> define a new named style — a paragraph style for divs and an character 
>> style for spans — and apply that style to the contents of the div or span. 
>> Initially the definition of the style is no different from the default 
>> paragraph or character style, unless an appropriate style of that name was 
>> already defined in your reference-doc in which case that style is used. You 
>> are supposed to open the docx file Pandoc created in your "word processor" 
>> program (typically Word or LibreOffice) and use its facilities for creating 
>> and modifying named styles to modify the newly created style to suit your 
>> needs. The appearance of text tagged with that style will then change 
>> accordingly. On subsequent Pandoc runs you can use the modified docx file 
>> as your --reference-doc and get the modified style(s) applied automatically 
>> to new docx files.
>>
>> Den fre 17 aug 2018 08:30kronicd <kro...-yfZBA/zTPvLR7s880joybQ@public.gmane.org> skrev:
>>
>>> Thanks for that, I've now updated the input to:
>>>
>>> Testing testing
>>>
>>>
>>> asdasdasd <span custom-style="Techfont">this should be tech font idk</span> 
>>> asdasdasd
>>>
>>>
>>> <span custom-style="CodeBlock">should</span> be for code block.
>>>
>>>
>>> <span custom-style="Highlight">like/this</span> means things
>>>
>>>
>>> Testing testing
>>>
>>>
>>> The commandline remains
>>>
>>> cat test.md| pandoc --reference-doc='Client.docx' --output testabcd.docx
>>>
>>> and now my output shows as
>>>
>>> [image: Screen Shot 2018-08-17 at 2.22.49 pm.png]
>>>
>>> The output is quite interesting, on further examination it appears that 
>>> a new style has been defined in the office xml, unpacking the docx and 
>>> reviewing styles shows the following:
>>>
>>>  <w:style w:customStyle="1" w:styleId="Highlight" w:type="paragraph">
>>>  <w:name w:val="Highlight"/>
>>>  <w:basedOn w:val="Normal"/>
>>>  <w:next w:val="Normal"/>
>>>  <w:link w:val="HighlightChar"/>
>>>  <w:qFormat/>
>>>  <w:rsid w:val="00F3388A"/>
>>>  <w:pPr>
>>>  <w:shd w:color="auto" w:fill="FFFF00" w:val="clear"/>
>>>  </w:pPr>
>>>  </w:style>
>>>  <w:style w:customStyle="1" w:styleId="HighlightChar" w:type="character"
>>> >
>>>  <w:name w:val="Highlight Char"/>
>>>  <w:basedOn w:val="DefaultParagraphFont"/>
>>>  <w:link w:val="Highlight"/>
>>>  <w:rsid w:val="00F3388A"/>
>>>  <w:rPr>
>>>  <w:rFonts w:ascii="Helvetica Neue Light" w:hAnsi="Helvetica Neue Light"
>>> />
>>>  <w:sz w:val="20"/>
>>>  <w:shd w:color="auto" w:fill="FFFF00" w:val="clear"/>
>>>  </w:rPr>
>>>  </w:style>
>>> ... snip ...
>>>  
>>>
>>>
>>> *<w:style w:customStyle="1" w:styleId="Highlight" 
>>> w:type="character"> <w:name w:val="Highlight"/> <w:basedOn 
>>> w:val="BodyTextChar"/> </w:style>*
>>>
>>> The portion in bold above shows new style information which was inserted 
>>> in styles.xml, this was not present within the original reference document. 
>>> Is this a bug or am I misusing a commandline param somewhere?
>>>
>>> On Friday, August 17, 2018 at 2:06:36 PM UTC+8, ousia wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 08/17/2018 07:33 AM, kronicd wrote: 
>>>> > Hi, 
>>>> > [...] 
>>>> > Is there a way to fix this so that the styles appear inline, rather 
>>>> than 
>>>> > adding an additional line break before and after? 
>>>> Use spans (such as `[awa]{.class #id}` in Markdown syntax) instead of 
>>>> divisions. 
>>>>
>>>> Divisions are block elements, so they give you a line before and after. 
>>>> Spans are for inline elements. 
>>>>
>>>> I hope it helps, 
>>>>
>>>> Pablo 
>>>> -- 
>>>> http://www.ousia.tk 
>>>>
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>>

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