Paragraph going to overset text when it shouldn't

InDesign CS Version 3.0.1 (2003) for Windows - I've been using this software on an HP desktop 5 days a week for about 2 yrs now, and I've never encountered this problem before. (I am by no means an expert.) I've got an 8 1/2 x 11 document, 1/2" margins, one text box starting 1 1/4" down the page running to bottom margin. I'm typing, typing, typing, then I start a new paragraph about 2/3 down the page (nowhere close to my bottom margin), full justification. At the end of the first line, as I type I notice the text disappears to overset text. If I delete part of what I just typed to bring the line back, then hit return at the end of the line (the one with the rest of the alpha keyboard, not in the number pad), the text stays on this page. Obviously I shouldn't have to hit return at the end of every line to type this paragraph. I've read several similar posts on this problem and no, it's not my keyboard, I'm not on a laptop. I tried resetting my preferences but it still happens. I've looked at every possible setting I can think of and cannot find anything odd. I've compared settings to my other documents and they're all good. I'm not using paragraph styles. I've looked at leading, paragraph keep options, hidden characters (no breaks appear), and story editor. I've deleted half the text in the text box and retyped it, but it still happens. I really don't want to recreate this whole document unless that's my last option, I want to know what's wrong with it!!
I zipped the document but I can't tell how to attach it to my post. I don't know anything about putting the document on a server so people can see it. If someone can tell me how to attach the zip file here (if it's possible) I'll do that. Or I'll email it to you. Otherwise, does anybody have a clue how to fix this? What am I missing?!!

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/940188199/c743b96c476f76c6ca07f048e919e720
this came in the email i sent myself.
or would it be this one from the yousendit webpage after i sent it?
Here's the link to your file:
https://www.yousendit.com/download/UFVyeW41TlE5eFh2Wmc9PQ
Sorry, i'm new to this. My information services division has a block on it so i couldn't open it myself using either link. Let me know if it doesn't work and i'll try something else tomorrow, i've got to leave for the night. (Only allowed 8 hrs a day here thank goodness!!) Oh and i've got my hyphenate box checked. I would think that no break or nonbreaking spaces show up when you view hidden characters?
thanks again
alice

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Hi,
I’m using InDesign CS6. The preflight lists overset errors. When I click on the page icon and go to where the overset txt is supposed to be…there is none.
I deleted EVERYTHING in the entire document, then did a SAVE-AS a new name; restarted InDesign; opened the empty document...and it still says I have overset text. I’ve had this issue before with other documents and just ignored the errors after hours of trying to fix the non-existent overset text - but other people have to use my documents. Having errors is an issue with shared documents. I started a chat with an adobe tech support person, but they had no idea what the problem is. Is this a bug? More importantly, is there a fix?
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I have a document with a similar issue. I just opened it just to check. When I click on the overset and click somewhere else, I get an empty text frame. I guess that's what happens to you as well. I turned on Show Hidden Characters and noticed that somehow I had at the bottom of the page a paragraph sign (probably I hit enter at the end without noticing it). I just deleted it and now is fine. Turn on the Show Hidden Characters and see if something shows up at the end of your document.

Overset text problem

Got a short chapter that began life in Word and was placed into ID. It contains a 2-col table, one of those cols is full of Greek I'd prefer not to retype.
On page 3 of the doc (the middle), text persistently shows as overset (that red plus sign). If I click the box to un-overset it, I get a copy of the whole article (six pages or so).
Cannot get the overset text (i.e., the duplicate copy of the whole chapter) to go away.
a) tried adding new blank pages at the end, parking the 'overset' text i.e. the duplicate of the chapter there. And it 'places' fine. But when I then delete those unneeded dupe pages from the project, the box again shows it's overset.
b) tried using the "clear" command on the Edit tab. Similarly, the overset box goes away, but then when I try to make a PDF out of the doc, I get a warning on output that there is overset text on that page, and, when I check the little box, it's again showing overset text.
This just seems bizarre: more like a corrupted doc than anything ID is supposed to do. Thoughts? Other times I've had overset text elsewhere in the doc, the text has behaved itself.
Thanks in advance
CS3, ID 5.0.4

Several brand-new concepts to me in your post.
Re story editor, parked my cursor on the offending page, clicked View / Story Editor, everything is grayed out. Not so sure what the SE is for, must confess.
"Text content tool" -- I don't see anything named that in my normal panel using float-over tool tips. Do you mean the Type tool?
Not sure what exactly I'm clearing: I've used the Clear command elsewhere w/ good effect, in that overset stuff vanished. Am guessing I'm clearing frame, not text, given it keeps reappearing.
Have seen idea of export to INX in other threads; it looked complex so I did not pursue.
Sorry, you've got a newbie here.

How do I accurately detect overset contents when using tables?

Hello, all. I am familiar with how to detect overset contents of a text frame, namely:
if ( myTextFrame.parentStory.contents.length > myTextFrame.contents.length) {
alert('There is overset text');
} else {
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However, the contents of my story are three tables, rather than text. Each table contains dozens of cells filled with text. Yet the "length" property of the frame is only 3! How do I accurately read the length of the content given that most of it is in tables so that I can test for overset text?
In case it helps anyone, a more detailed description is:
If there are three tables in the story, and only 2 fit on a page-sized text frame, the length property of that frame will be 2. Kind of weird, but not a problem yet.
In the same scenario, however, if the third table BEGINS on the page but spills over (creating an overset situation), the length property of that frame will be 3 -- causing the test think there is NO overset text! InDesign simply sees 3 characters in the story, and only 3 characters on that page.
When I look at the "contents" property of the story, it just reads 3 squarish characters. They're obviously some kind of special character. InDesign apparently takes the concept of "table" and just writes a placeholder character for it in the "contents" property.
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Actually, Harbs, I'd already just burst my own bubble by running additional tests! So I have to revise my whole set of instructions.
IGNORE EVERYTHING I WROTE ABOVE.
Here is the revised solution, based on the initial solution proposed by Dirk and then revised to work around Harbs bug discoveries. It is essentially a corrected version of Dirks line. Instead of saying:
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That's just the short version. Here's the full code and explanation:
Summary of problem:
InDesign treats a table as a single special character, so it does not accurately report the "overflows" property of a text frame containing a table which spills beyond its margins. A text frame will show as not overflowing (i.e. myTextFrame.overflows will return false) if its final table simply begins within its margins--even if most of the table spills well beyond the text frame. So a ten-page table that starts on page one will only considered by InDesign scripting as being one character long (and therefore shown as fitting completely in first frame even when it doesn't). The solution for this, as discovered by Dirk, is to test whether the final cell of the table is in an overflow area.
The solution:
You cannot just test whether the cell is overflowing, or whether the parent text frame is overflowing, because InDesign will misreport them and their contents when they are in an overflow area, making it impossible to distinguish a cell overflow from a containing-text-frame overflow. So we just check the parent text frame of the final insertion point, which is after the last table, and see if its length is zero (meaning has no visible contents). If so, the insertion point is in an overflow area!
So the test to run is this:
var finalCell = myTextFrame.parentStory.tables.lastItem().cells.lastItem();
if(finalCell.parent.parent.insertionPoints.lastItem().parentTextFrames.length==0) { ...your code here... }
Of course you'll replace myTextFrame with the one you're dealing with in your own script.
Example usage:
This is how I implemented this in my own script. I have an array of text frames which I pass to this function, and by the time I call the function this array contains only one element, just the first large text frame (with my long table already placed inside it). It also relies on a helper function drawTableFrame which is simple and I'll leave out; it just adds a text frame to the new page and sizes it. And of course myDocument I've long ago set to be the document I'm working in.
// Takes array of text frames, checks for overflow, and adds pages as needed
function addOverflowPages(whichFrameArray) {
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I'm pulling out my hair. I've been using InDesign since before it was InDesign, and I've never seen this problem before.
I imported a Word 2007 document into InDesign 5.0. The flowed text includes URLs, and that's not a problem...until I get to the one that creates the overset text. With a full-page text frame, I have two lines of text at the top, and I can't even get to the end of the document. The text is overset to infinity.
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Now then, I tried deleting all pages to the end of the document, then re-flowing.
The way I understood re-flowing is that the frame would simply be expanded.
What appears to be happening is that a new frame is created that overlaps the first frame a bit on the end.
Do I have to create a frame for each page? That does not seem intuitive, especially when a long chapter.
I've read Adobe's help on frames over and over again, but just do not get it. Is there some way to enlarge the original frame so that everything flows together or is there a memory restriction and creating multiple frames is a work around?

I've read that section over and over again for the past hour.
What is strange is that I've one line that when I add text to it, it causes this condition. I can add text to other lines, and it won't.
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Hey Everyone,
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False Overset Text in Links Panel

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This is the problem I'm encountering: When I export to .pdf, Indesign Crashes. I've been able to narrow it down to one specific file and actually specific pages. But here is something I've noticed and cannot figure out. I've got three .psd linked files that are showing up as overset (OV) in the links panel, therefore when I click on them ID says it can't show me them because they are in over set text. But my live preflight says there is no over set text. ID jumps to pages still when I click that link but that whole story has no overset text. (i.e. not red overset in the outbox and no overset text in story editor mode. I can't figure out where those three linked objects are or how to select them to delete them. Any thoughts?

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dcald wrote:
The links panel indicates that the images are in overset text but we know for a fact that they are from a previous issue and are no longer in the ID file. Also, preflight indicates that there is no overset text in the file. It is one flow thoughout the entire file. Attempts to create PDF fail consistently. Each time someone has had to build the file again from scratch which for a file over 60 pages long, is not good for feelings towards the ID/InCopy.
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Thank you for the reply.
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InDesign has an online help function; searching for 'overset text' yields this:
http://community.adobe.com/help/search.html?q=overset%20text&hl=en_US&lr=en_US&l=indesign_ product_adobelr&site=indesign_cs5_all&self=1&filter=0
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In summary, 'overset text' is simply Too Much Information. Text that has not been placed. Text for which there is no room allocated in your text frames.
You can best delete it using the Story Editor (look in the help for that), which helpfully shows you what part of a story is overset -- but, would you really want to delete this? (Perhaps you would, since you never noticed it was missing in the first place.) Another way of getting rid of it is placing your text cursor at the very end of the last visible sentence in the last text frame -- the one with a glaringly obvious Warning Signal Red Plus in its lower right corner -- and press Cmd+Shft+End keys to select everything up to the end of the story, then press Backspace.

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I have done, this did work right for at least the left side of the spread, but never for the right side -
Make sure the left and right page master page text frames are threaded View>Extras>Show Text Threads. Here I have left and right page text boxes threaded on my A-master spread:
Checking Smart Text Reflow can make adding long text to master frames easier:
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