Taylor – in windows, the font has its internal name (eg “Times New Roman Bold”) and its actual filename “timesbd_1.ttf”. If two fonts have the same internal name, you can have problems when trying to install the newer one. You have to delete the original font completely from the system, reboot (just to be safe) then install the new version. And just deleting the font can be a chore… sometimes windows doesn’t allow it. Here’s a link detailing how to deal with that: https://superuser.com/questions/166913/how-to-delete-a-font-in-windows-7-that-is-still-in-use

Additionally, if you’re sure you cleared the old version and replaced with the new version, the old version might have specific glyphs that are not present in the new version. Somehow ID seems to cache these. I think adobe apps cache fonts in general, using files named something.LST …deleting the .lst files clears the cache, but do this at your own risk.

Finally, if you send a file to someone else that calls on the font, and that person has the old version installed… it will just use that old version because it has the same internal name. Both users have to have the new version installed… or else you need to send them a PDF with the font embedded.

on my older version, if you copy and paste or use the duplicate command, overset text is preserved (you get the red + at the bottom right of the frame in both copies). How are you duplicating?

Can you confirm the colors of the original documents in indesign by using the eyedropper on them?
Do the banners and newsletters have a box / text box in the background, and does that box have a color?
Or is it literally just empty, no background object or image at all?

I’ve had jobs in the past where someone put very subtle boxes or images with like 1% yellow instead of pure white,
and on my monitor it was almost impossible to see but looked like plain white. I forget their reasoning…
basically they couldn’t or didn’t want to do 0% CMYK so they made objects with 1% yellow when they needed something white.

Anything covering the background that has a color, but the fill is transparent or almost transparent?

Is it possible the output files (PDFs?) are actually white but have an odd look on your monitor? Do they show a color
if you open them in photoshop or illustrator?

I’m having trouble recreating this, but it does sound weird.

Normally if you have the black arrow selected, shift+drag one corner of a text box = proportionally scale the text box, but don’t resize the text. Ctrl+drag = stretch the box non-proportionally, and stretch the text too. And ctrl+shift = proportionally scale box + resize text to match.

You’re saying none of these three options does anything when you drag the corner of a text box? Does the corner still move?
Is it definitely a normal text box you’re trying to stretch?
Do you have the black arrow selected or white arrow or maybe the scale tool (E) selected?

If it’s indeed related to settings, the usual fix is to delete your preferences and let indesign re-create them. Here are the instructions – https://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

I think your best bet is to set a tab that will result in every line being “near center”.

Like if the average line length is 15 characters, create a tab that is maybe 7 characters to the left of center.
Then left align everything, and use grep to insert a tab at the start of every new line,
something like…

Find: ^(.+)$
Replace: $1

I know it’s not exactly what you want, but they will all be near the center
and the left edges of all of these lines will line up. It will probably look ‘good enough’
without spending hours doing it manually.