Can all column rules' height be re-adjusted at once after changing the copy text font size?

Work with object styles, change the setting there.

With your document "Long Distance Itinerary Cyclists copy.indd" open, my take on the technical side of InDesign is this:

[1] Do not use the Column Rules feature of the Text Frame Options. Use graphic lines instead.

[2] For call out text use two frames: One for the text and one for the text wrap. That's more flexible.

[3] Allow text in articles to end on a different line than the other columns.

[4] Do not (mis)use parent pages for your layout work. Currently all your layouts are done on Parent A named "A-Master" and Parent B named "B-Master".

[5] Text cannot flow from page to page. Text frames are not threaded.

[6] Document history shows that your document initially was created in InDesign CS6 in 2013. The exact version is 8.0.0.370, the initial version of InDesign CS6 not bug fixed at all. So I wonder if this causes some crashes on the document later in its life. Time to export the document to IDML, open the IDML file as document and save it with a new name to prevent future corruption of the file.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

Currently I see this workaround:

Have an extra text frame for the first character threaded to the other one with the column rules. With text wrap applied. From my German InDesign 2022 on Windows 10:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

Hi @Chris P. Bacon ,

the start position of the column rules is a side-effect of the first character in your text frame.

The bigger the character the more does the zero start position of the rule move out of the frame.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

You can try turning column rules off and back on (try it for just that frame, use Ctrl-B to open the menu). But I think what you're seeing is default behavior, running the rules continuously along the text flow, even though it's interrupted by the inset box. (ETA: remember, it's a column setting, not a paragraph/text setting.)

Also, try adding text wrap padding to the left side of that inset box, to force the text flow to fully bypass it.

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