In the past, I used to manually set up the tool chain for PDF production on Windows.
Basically, this requires the installation of Ghostscript and a PS printer driver that prints to a RedMon port. The trick is to configure the PS printer driver so that it embeds Type 42 fonts. And I also need to have pdftk to set the document security and then stuff…
Well, that was indeed the past. 
These days I get lazy and just use the free (as in beer) product PrimoPDF. So far, I find it does everything right, but I still manually remove the Ghostscript 8.50 that is bundled in its installer (remove the gs subdirectory) and let it use the most current version on my computer.
Combined with the ability to split and join PDFs using pdftk, that’s a pretty good basic setup for everyday PDF production at a low low cost of zero dollars. I am all thankful!
Update: Many of you reminded me that I should really mention PDFCreator in this post as well. I agree. Both of them are great!
