Printing Errors or Lights & Stuck Print Jobs

WORD documents just stopped printing - 

I was printing 2 copies of a document from WORD and the first one came out fine, i changed a paper type setting as I was using a heaver grade paper, and went to print, and nothing.  Got an error message: Word can't print do to printer setup.  So i returned the paper type back to normal - nothing. After running HP Print Dr several times, and that worked fine.  I uninstalled and reinstalled the HP software and drivers - nothing.  I uninstalled and reinstalled Office - nothing.  I have since started looking in the registry for anything left over and removed all HP folders, however I additionally found in: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/ Printers, several registry keys left over from both my 6978 and the previous 4630 i had. (If those keys are to be removed, which ones or it it the whole string of keys or the Printer folder?)

There are 6 sub-folders in the Printer file, two which contain HP registry keys:

1) Connections

2) ConvertUserDevModesCount (both 4630 and 6978 keys listed - as well as XPS Writter, OneNote Fax and WinDisc)

3) Defaults

4) DevModePerUser

5) DevModes2

6) Settings (both 4630 and 6978 keys listed)

I also saw on the forum to turn off User Account notices - did that and nothing.

If i convert my word documents to a PDF, prints fine, in fact all other Office suit programs print as they should. 

Question:  What do I do now?

I obviously can work around this, but why?

Thx!!