We have the need to save PDF's outside of Windchill also.
PDMlink will save the viewable as a PDF, but its not the easiest to save the file out to email for example. Doable, just not fluid.
We are currently saving our PDF files out of the database manually and exploreing Etrage and other applicaitons to save the PDF externally in a specified location. This can be set to occur automatically when the object is checked in or when the state changes to production or released, but I cannot tell you exactly how to set this up right now, as I have not done it yet.