Pdf "printing" from Word document with numbered paragraphs skewing the numbering in the pdf

Although many years ago, Preview used to open Word documents for display purposes, the Preview application in macOS Tahoe does not recognize Word documents to even select for opening in its File Chooser. Do not use the Finder's Quick Look to preview Word documents as it may display them incorrectly despite having MS Word installed.

If you want that Word document, which may contain form fields, generated as a PDF, then use Microsoft Word, or the current LibreOffice Writer for that purpose. Yes, Pages can open a Word created legal document, but Pages not being a Word clone, does not guarantee in the document translation process that it will not remove unsupported features (e.g. form fields) from that Word document. Those removals will wreck original formatting.

In fact, using a legal template (e.g. Attorney Names) saved from Word 2024 for Mac v16.112.1, Pages opened it and threw a warning about removing unsupported form fields. That wrecked the resulting document layout after the translation into a Pages document.

Was that pleading template originally created in Word, Word Perfect, or another application and exported to Word? Therein lies the potential for mayhem in the Word document content.

Word provides two choices of Save As to PDF: 1) best for printing, 2) best for electronic distribution. Which did you choose? The PDF structure could be different in your choice.

Depending on the internal PDF structure, Apple's Preview may have less competency accurately displaying the PDF then the more robust Adobe Acrobat Reader, or even another third-party PDF reader. Try a different PDF reader and see if there is a difference in what you see.

Don't use the Print panel in Word. Use the Save As… panel and select PDF as the file format.

Word 2024 for Mac v16.112.1

Does Pages make a workable PDF from the Microsoft 365 file?

PDFs are final format. Any changes to the PDF appearance will need to originate in that Word document and then another Save As… to PDF. You may have inherited some formatting aggravation in that template that you are using.