How to move pages between documents WITHOUT elements shifting

Question

Hi everyone! My team members and I are so frustrated over what I think should be a really simple issue: copying/moving/dragging pages between documents and NOTHING CHANGING.
Whenever we move pages between documents (which we have to do on a monthly basis - moving content into client branded files), at least ONE thing will shift and it usually has to do with overset text and/or text wrap. We have googled our brains out. We've tried everything on this list How-To: 10 Techniques for Copying Pages Between InDesign Documents | CreativePro.com and in the various Lynda tutorials we've looked at. We have combined our powers and still can not solve this problem so now I come to you, hoping that you can please please please help us figure out this issue before one of us throws a computer out the window.
We have this one document. And this is what one of the problem pages looks like. Everything is on one layer. (look at the section marked 5)
Then I move the pages (copy/paste the content; drag and drop the pages; etc.) into the destination document so we can apply branding.
AND THIS HAPPENS.
WHY does this text suddenly become overset?
The preferences of both documents are IDENTICAL. In fact, Document B was originally created from Document A.
AND FUN FYI: I took Document A and Saved As a new name. Opened it the new name. And tried moving the pages into the newly named document -- and the SAME EXACT THING HAPPENED.
I am going to bash my head into a wall. Can someone please shed some light on this? Have you seen this before? How do we fix it??

Answer 1

aschwartau wrote:
Doesn't saving as IDML lose some of the properties if you use any shadow or other effects?
That's not something that I have ever heard, but since I haven't heard everything, I suppose it's possible. What you may be thinking of is that some people use idml to migrate a file to a lower version, and if that lower version lacks a feature of the version that created the file, you will either lose or modify the way that that feature worked in the original. I don't think that even in that scenario that a feature that was present in both versions would go away just because it took a trip through idml to get to an earlier version. And if idml botched shadow or effects, nobody would use it, and I don't think Adobe would have it.
aschwartau wrote:
If we had just done a final Save As on the Document A before giving it to the team member who's going to be copying the content into Document B, does that not count as doing a Save As? You mean the minute it's freshly opened try doing another Save As? (P.S. Edit: Just tried this. Didn't change what happened. )
The thing that Save-As does is remove little bits of data associated with undos that a normal Save retains. Sometimes this data can lead to problems, so any time you do it, it will help, but if you do it at stage 37 and you hand off at stage 38, you will have cleared out most all of anything that may have built up over time. I don't want to give the impression that it is required, but it certainly doesn't hurt, and is probably a good idea to Save-As periodically.