Sorry for the delay in replying -- it took awhile to run these tests.
Unfortunately, after trying all the print options (from the Adobe dialog box, and also the Printer Properties box), it's the same problem -- documents created in Word with footers, then converted to PDF, print the footer partway up the page if there is whitespace between the body text and the footer.
Any other ideas on what I can try? Maybe play around with how Word creates footers? This printing issue only happens on the HP printer, by the way -- printing to a Canon works fine (and we would do that, except the HP is the nearby printer with color, and we need to print there).
Thanks,
cd