Preview text spacing looks different than in the source file

I am exporting a file for print created by another designer. The ai file was packaged and looked great at first glance. However, upon opening the ai file, the text spacing is completely different than what I see in the quicklook/preview mode. There's a lot of widows, rivers, orphans, etc. I don't know how the other designer adjusted the text spacing but I cannot manually recreate the neat structure I see in preview mode. I considered asking the designer to just expand the text and resend it, however, we are in a time crunch and they are not available. What could be the problem? Any tips on how to fix this appreciated!