Printing (flattening) a PDF'd powerpoint file

Hello.
I work in a Uni print room and get bombarded with lots of printing problems so i thought i would share this one and see if it is common or if there's any advice that could help.
I was sent a powerpoint file that has been converted to a PDF (i don't know what settings converted it i'm afraid) and people have been struggling to print it. It is less than 1mb in size and is a fairly simple powerpoint file made up of about 20 slides with text and master slide graphic that appears to be nothing out of the ordinary.
When it is sent to print it takes ages to flatten and get to the printer. I flattened the file using acrobat pro 9 and the file, once it eventually finished had grown from less than 1mb to over 350mb!
Anyway, i was hoping someone could shed some light on why this is happening to something as basic as a converted powerpoint file. Any advice will be greatfully recieved. I've read that it could be something to do with transparencies flattening, if that's helpful.
many thanks in advance.
Chris

Thanks for replying Bill,
I don't have the original Powerpoint file i'm afraid. The reason this is a concern is that the Uni has a new online area where lecturers can put work up for students to get to. It appears everything must be PDF on there.
Well, i had a bit of a play and found i was able to flatten the file to a 3mb file by putting it on "low resolution" and dropping the "raster/vector" setting to "0".
This isn't ideal but atleast it means we can print the file.
Attached is the first page of the original PDF. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FHII77RR (hope this link is ok to use)
I believe that the problem is coming from the grey slide graphic on the left. It actually appears to go all the way across the page, as when flattening i can see the page loading and see this grey pattern covers all the page. Hope that makes sense.
Thanks again
Chris

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// format name to remove spaces and commas
var studName = this.getField("Name").value.split(",").join("_").split(" ").join("");
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Although the console will list 'AdobePDF8' as one of my printers, I've since discovered that "the destination printer cannot be set through this property in Mac OS" :( . I can set it as my default printer to work around it, but I still can't dictate the name of the new file. So, I've resorted to printing to PostScript with the aim of running them all as a batch through the AdobePDF8 printer later, except there's still a few problems.
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