Just wondering if anyone has any useful "tricks" they've encountered for improving speed of use (design and using data) and printing?

I'm aware that larger graphics files naturally slow things down, and so I try to reduce the size of the files but keep the quality.
Likewise, PDFs are always slow, and so we try to avoid using them where possible.

An easy way to improve the print speed is to take advantage of the caching possibilities. This allows the objects to be stored temporarily as they are ripped, so that they can be recalled instead of redrawing them.

There are different caching methods that can be used, depending on the rip for your printer. There is information on this in the help files for PlanetPress.