Heat-sensitive stencil and method of fabricating same

A heat-sensitive stencil comprising a thermoplastic resin film having a thickness of 0.5-10 .mu.m, and a porous resin layer formed on said thermoplastic resin film and having an open cellular structure, said porous resin layer having pores with an average pore diameter of 2-50 .mu.m, a thickness of 5-100 .mu.m and a density of 0.1-1 g/cm.sup.3, wherein said heat-sensitive stencil has an air permeability in the range of 1.0 cm.sup.3 /cm.sup.2 .multidot.sec to 157 cm.sup.3 /cm.sup.2 .multidot.sec in a portion thereof when said thermoplastic resin film of said portion is perforated to form perforations providing an open ratio S.sub.O /S.sub.P of 0.2 to 0.8, at least part of said porous resin layer in each of said perforations remaining unperforated, wherein S.sub.O represents a total area of said perforations and S.sub.P represents the area of said portion, wherein said porous resin layer has pores exposed to a surface thereof to form a multilplicity of openings, at least part of said openings has an equivalent diameter of at least 5 .mu.m, said equivalent diameter being defined as a diameter of a circle having the same area as that of the corresponding opening, the total area of said openings having an equivalent diameter of at least 5 .mu.m is 4-80% of a total area of said surface of said porous resin layer, wherein the total area of said openings having an equivalent diameter of at least 5 .mu.m is at least 50% of a total area of said openings, the stencil having a flexural rigidity of 5-200 mN.