It's possible that the PO program doesn't pull the full item description in, but I don't think so. More likely, your form needs to be modified. It could be that the fonts your system has take up more room than the ones it was designed for, or it may have been designed in the hopes that users would fix it if they wanted too....
 
Modify Forms is really pretty easy - especially if you just need to widen a field. If you don't know how, just ask.

That's not quite so simple, as I recall. Just try playing with the height and spacing of the boxes, make sure that the bottom margin line is pulled up as tight to the bottom of the boxes as you can, and make sure you have a good backup before you start in case something gets messed up. And check ALL the sub-report tabs to make sure that there isn't extra space creeping in there too.