It turns out I had a corrupt Word registry key which I deleted and solved my
problem.
Delete the Word Data key
Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to
modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the
registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps
carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it.
Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information
about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article
number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
322756 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/) How to back up and restore
the registry in Windows
Printing problems in Word may be caused by a corrupted Word Data key in the
Windows registry. If this is the case, you must delete the Data key. When
you restart Word, Word automatically re-creates the Word Data key.

Important After you delete the Word Data key, some settings in Word are
reset to their default settings.

To delete the Word Data key in the Windows registry, follow these steps: 1.
Quit all Windows programs that are running.
     2. Click Start, and then click Run.
     3. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
     4. Locate the following registry key: . Word 2007
           HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word
           . Word 2003
           HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word

     5. Expand the Word subkey, and then click the Data subkey.
     6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
     7. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
     8. On the Registry menu, click Exit.

Also here is a link to a good article on fixing Word 2007 problems, it
helped me to delete a corrupt Word data key in the registry:
http://reviews.cnet.com/word-processors/microsoft-word-2007/9603-3529_7-32143055
.html?messageID=2505911