Wireframe text after copying and pasting

[Artmama]

So I'm still working on a multipage document which will be exported as pdf and I now have a new problem.

Some of the text is set in columns but I've decided it's easier (as the line spacing seems a little uncontrollable in the column text) to copy and paste it into text boxes which I can then link to new text boxes if there is overflow. However, the text I've copied just ends up as red dashed outlines of the text, ie it's not black text as it should be, it's a wireframe style of text which is completely useless. However I paste the text, ie as normal column text or just standard text in a line, it is always coming up as wireframe.

I just want to finish this job and it seems I'm getting one issue after another.

How do I get the text to revert back to standard text in appearance?

What I've tried:

Closing and reopening the document.

Copying and pasting the text into unformatted notepad and copying it from there.

Checked all my type settings.

I almost have no hair left from pulling it out. Anyone have any other ideas?