So it turns out there were two problems here: (1) the InDesign bug that Peter describes, and (2) a No Break character style that was also applied to space characters. Removing "No Break" from space characters resolved (2), and temporarily resizing text frames resolved (1).   Thank you, Peter and Uwe, for your help and inputs! ... View more

No problematic Keep Options, as far as I can see, and split footnotes are allowed. ... View more

Correction: Resizing the text frame, and then reducing it again, does help – but only in some cases. In other cases, the text disappears again when I reduce the text frame to its proper size:     I am at my wits' end. (It's impossible for me to go on with and finish this job under these circumstances.) ... View more

Thank you, Uwe and Peter. I did as you said (basically), but it does not work. I still can't conjure up the overset text.   I have made a short screen cast (1'23) to show you what is happening:   https://we.tl/t-4juNLHMipD   I hope this helps somehow ... ... View more

Ah, I see. No, this doesn't resolve the problem. The text does reflow, yes, but the text frames in question remain empty.   I should add that the first of a longer string of empty text frames (one per page) has a few lines of text at the top of the text frame (and the rest of the text frame remains empty), and the following page has another few lines. Breaking the story and rethreading it leads to the number of lines in these text frames to change slightly. ... View more

Hi Uwe   You are right, the text is not missing – it's still there, as Overset Text, and can be seen in the Story Editor.   The text frame is empty: the story (text flow) skips this very text frame (and page), so the text flows from the previous frame to the next. I cannot click into this empty text frame.   When I edit text elsewhere in the story, the formerly empty text frame may suddenly be filled with text again (hurray!), but some other text frame may turn empty instead. For example, pages 138 and 154–178 had empty text frames this morning (with lots of overset text at the end of page 178), and now pages 67, 145, and 157–172 are empty (with overset text on page 172). From a user's point of view, these emptifications of text frames appear fully randomised.   Ironically, the Preflight Panel indicates 1 error in the file, namely, the overset text on page 172. It is not aware of the empty text frames elsewhere.   I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "deleting" the empty text frames ... (I'd prefer not to create a new story; if I keep one story per chapter I don't have to worry about footnote numbering. However, if nothing else helps, I'll probably have to do this ...) ... View more

I can't enter a character in one of the empty text frames.   I can enter a character in the last text frame that contains text (just before the pages with the empty text frames), but then only the text reflows slightly (due to the paragraph composer). The following text frames stay empty. ... View more

Thank you for your reply. I remember having had to deal with this bug when I was using CS4 or CS5.5, and that changing the size of the text frame used to help. I haven't experienced this bug in recent years – I thought it had been resolved by now.   However, this time neither recomposing all stories (with a text frame selected) nor changing the size of the text frame helps – the text frames are skipped and stay blank. ... View more

Weirdly, the text frame (page) that was blank a few minutes ago is now filled with text again, without me having changed anything there (I only deleted a few occurrences of U+FEFF). However, about a dozen other pages are still blank and I fail to make the text reappear (the text is now as overset text at the end of the story).   Reapplying styles does not help. ... View more

Ah, thank you Peter. In this case I think deleting U+FEFF is harmless since there are no index marks, text anchors or the like in my files. But good to know to be careful next time! ... View more

Thank you Vladan! ... View more

Here is the sample document:   https://we.tl/t-xR3kR4yQOK   How do I find and delete the –l characters? ... View more

Hi Manan   Thanks for your reply.   InDesign CC 2020 15.1.2 macOS Mojave 10.14.6   Please note it's "~l" (not " I").   I've prepared a sample document to share, but I fail to save it (both the commands "Save" and "Save As …" are greyed out):     So my next question is how to save this file ...   Update: If I simply close the document, I am asked whether I want to save this file, and after trying to do, I am told "Cannot save [filename]". ... View more

Update: The problem does not seem to lie with placing the files (of whatever format) but with linking the two text frames.   Rather than "placing" a text file I now did a copy-and-paste, and then tried linking the first text frame with the second – no change, ID crashed.   I'm now really at a loss what to do. InDesign, please don't let me down ... ... View more

Thank you, Randy. I've now done as you recommend, but alas, no change – ID keeps crashing. ... View more

Thank you Uwe, much appreciated.   If I understand InDesign's terminology correctly, my CC 2018 13.1.1 (English/Hebrew) version is not the same as the previous ME version (which I used to use). So maybe the restrictions you mention don't apply ...   It seems to me that FontMixer does roughly the same as the Composite Font editor. (I tried using IndyFont, which is said to be very simple, a few years ago but failed embarrassingly.)   So maybe one last question is, where are composite fonts saved? I may prepare a composite font for a particular project and wish to use it in another project again. How will I achieve that? ... View more

Thanks Steve, this is one of the few threads I have found with info on the Composite Font Editor. But I'd like to know more ... Perhaps my core question is this: What is the difference between a normal font file and a composite font file? The answer to this would explain where it is saved, how I can reuse it with other projects or on other computers, if there is a limit of characters I add to the composite font (does it slow down performance?), etc. ... View more

Hi, this is a serious bug indeed. For a workaround, see reply 14 in this thread: weird character spacing in paragraphs ... View more

If there is a text reflow due to some edits elsewhere in the paragraphs (sometimes these can be quite long), I fear I'll forget to check whether such a hyphen sits in some other place than at the very end of a line. I've come to the conclusion that as a workaround I'll simply prevent such words from breaking at the closing parenthesis spot by applying a "No Language and don't hyphenate" character style to closing parenthesis followed by letters. Breaking "(an)tref-fen" would then still be possible. Thanks Samuel ... View more

As a last resort, I was hoping to simply delete these characters once the page breaks are final, but it seems you can't Find/Change anything in the running headers paragraph style even with Include Master Pages turned on. ... View more