I use a set of sketchy Visio stencils to create mockups for the web applications we build here, and there have been two practical pitfalls to the sketchy stencil strategy.  First, the sketchy stencils created larger than expected print jobs — I’ve had a few close calls, nervously hovering over the color printer before a client meeting, waiting for my mockups to emerge.  Second, when exporting the mockups to PDF (through Adobe’s PDFMaker add-on), the PDF files tend to be large, and printing from the PDFs takes even longer.

I learned recently that Microsoft provides its own Save as PDF add-on for Office 2007, so I tried it out, and was very pleasantly surprised.  Microsoft’s PDF generator:

• is free (unlike Acrobat)
• generates PDFs in the blink of an eye (rather than a minute or so with Acrobat)
• PDFs are 1/2 to 1/4 the size (based on my casual observations)
• printing from the Microsoft-made PDFs is incredibly fast

That last printing point is a big one, since it allows me to circumvent Visio’s embarassing inability to perform simple print functions, like collating multiple copies.  (Rather than print in Visio, I can make a PDF and print from Acrobat Reader with ease.)