AS) export single page PDFs from multi-artboards

Question

I'm not exactly sure where my new problem lies. I'm trying to save out single page PDFs from an Illustrator CS4 document with multiple artboards. Each artboard should become a PDF. I can get a multi page PDF, but when it saves single page files, I get white PDFs with error messages on them (I think it is saving .ai files with a .pdf extension).
this is where I am now (simplified, of course):
tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
set docName to name of current document
set itemNumber to 1
tell application "Finder" to set fileLoc to path to desktop as string
set pageCount to (count artboards in document docName)
tell current document
set allPlacedItems to placed items
repeat with h from 1 to (count of allPlacedItems)
set thisPlacedItem to item h of allPlacedItems
tell thisPlacedItem to embed
end repeat
set allTextItems to text frames
repeat with j from 1 to (count of allTextItems)
set thisTextItem to item j of allTextItems
tell thisTextItem to convert to paths
end repeat
end tell
repeat with i from 1 to pageCount
set pdfSaveOptions to {class:PDF save options, pdfXstandard:PDFX None, compatibility:Acrobat 6, preserve editability:false, generate thumbnails:false, optimization:false, acrobat layers:false, artboard range:i, view pdf:false, color downsampling:0, color resample:nodownsample, color compression:none, grayscale downsampling:0, grayscale resample:nodownsample, grayscale compression:none, monochrome downsampling:0, monochrome resample:nodownsample, monochrome compression:none, compress art:false, trim marks:false, registration marks:false, color bars:false, page info:false, page marks style:Roman, trim mark weight:trimmarkweight025, offset:6.0, bleed link:true, bleed offset:{0, 0, 0, 0}, color conversion id:none, color destination id:none, color profile id:include all profiles, trapped:false, font subset threshold:50.0}
set pdfName to docName & "TEST" & itemNumber & ".pdf"
set destFile to (fileLoc & pdfName) as string
save document 1 in file destFile as pdf with options pdfSaveOptions
set itemNumber to (itemNumber + 1)
end repeat
close current document without saving
end tell

Answer 1

// Save the artboards to PDF.
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
var original_filename = myDoc.name.toString();
// alert (myDoc.name.toString() )
// Get the folder location
var destFolder = Folder.selectDialog('Select the folder to save the PDF files to:');
// Get the number of artboards to export from a dialogue
var total =  myDoc.artboards.length
//     Number.selectDialogue('Total Number of Files to be made')
if (destFolder) {
     for (i=0; i<total; i++)
          var destFile = new File(destFolder+original_filename+"_"+i);          //     Assign incrementing filenames
          var pdfSaveOptions = new PDFSaveOptions();
          pdfSaveOptions.viewAfterSaving = false;          //     Don't want to see these fles in Reader
          pdfSaveOptions.SaveMultipleArtboards = true;
          var range = new String();
          range = (i+1).toString();
          pdfSaveOptions.artboardRange= range;     //     not Assign incrementing page range
          myDoc.saveAs (destFile,  pdfSaveOptions);     
I've run this script on the 3 art board document the Adobe sample scripts create. It's a just different coloured star on each artboard.
This script appears to work in as far as I get 3 files with just one artboard showing when I open the files in Adobe Reader. Problem is when I open them in AI, I can see all the artwork is still there and even more stranger is the fact that the numbers are still 1,2,3 whereas in Reader it's just page i showing as page 1 each time.
This could be a problem when the application I'm writing generates an image structure from the files if it sticks the excess data onto the GPU (not sure if it will or not). If it includes all the data, also it just makes the Application footprint bigger by a 8 MB or so of unnecessary baggage. An issue for a 'light weight' app.
I noticed the export ExportArtboardsPhotoshop.jsx script has this line:
psdExportOptions.saveMultipleArtboards = true;
It works in that context but in PDF context it only works in terms of what Reader shows not what exists in the files. Good one Adobe… Makes me wonder what the Multiple art boards method did before AI had multiple art boards. How was AI dividing the objects?!
Also I really need a SaveAsCopy (non-existent I think) method or I'll have to keep reopening the original file and then doing SaveAs.
Back to manual duplicating files in finder, batch renaming, opening them all and deleting excess. Or export to PSD and get my dimensions right or just oversized (I can always down sample in the app)…
This is truly a painful exercise!