Hi again,
I see I had picked the wrong 'vertical bar'.
Resetting the zoom scale at the left end of the tool bar, as suggested by Viking OSX will do the job, and offers a wide range of magnifications.
Pressing option-command-8, mentioned in my earlier post, will also expand the page (and the text, including the insertion beam), but does not offer a range of magnifications. One advantage it does have is that repeating the option-command-8 keystroke combination immediately returns the page to its previous scale.
Another technique for finding the insertion beam is to tap the space bar a couple of times while watching for a widening space in the text. While fast and easy to do and to undo (give the delete key the same number of taps as you used on the space bar), it does require you to take care that you do not have any text (or objects) selected when you tap these keys. Typing (which is what you are doing) replaces any selected text with what is being typed.
Another technique for finding the insertion beam is to tap the space bar a couple of times while watching for…
In the last line above, you should be able to quickly determine where the insertion bar was when I marked the location, then wrote this line.
Regards,
Barry