Problem Changing Page Size In A Large Document

I took a very fast look at yor sample file. It is not 4.25 by 5.5 as you stated, which would have made the new size larger, but 5.5 x 8.5 which means you are going to a smaller page size. Reducing the page size without changing the margins means the usable page area is shrinking, and since you have no space to reduce the margin widths you are stuck with having narriower text frames which is leading to overset text. There is no way around making the frames smaller when you reduce the page area.

On the good news front, you seem to have set up styles in the document. You can try editing the styles to reduce the type size slightly to see if the text will reflow and fit in the smaller frames, but that's probably not ideal.

As Scott has sort of mentioned, your layout method -- individual text frames for each heading, ingredient list and procedure -- is the real problem here. I have no particular problem with the tables, though I agree tabbed text is easier to work with. A single frame per page, set to the full size of the printable area between the margins, would allow the text to reflow through the whole page at once. Use paragraph spacing rules to distribute space between sections of the recipe, and Keep Options in your paragraph styles to keep recipes from breaking across pages in the cases where there is not enough space for two recipes to fit on a single page (or, since your family wants to print these on cards, to make each recipe start on a new page, regarless of what might fit).

Of course doing that essentially means starting over, but it also would be an excellent time to change to a landscape orientation to make the cards easier to read in the file box.

It looks like you don’t have any margins on your pages. Is that deliberate? Or perhaps you have captured only the text portion of the page. what is the text area of the original (4½″ × 5½″) and the resized (5″ × 8″) documents? This is the most important measurement. I also suggest you would be better off without using tables. Tabs and spanned/split columns are easier to make global changes to if you use paragraph styles. If you are willing to share the file someone can examine it to see what, if anything, is the problem.