Slow Illustrator Multi-Page PDF Export + Alternative Solutions

Hello everyone,
I have a recurring job that requires 50-60+ small illustrations be placed into a few different layouts. The workflow I have set up right now is as follows: All of the illustrations are drawn in one Illustrator file with multiple page tiles. This file is exported as a multi-page PDF and placed in InDesign layouts. One main problem with this system is that it takes a long time to export 60+ page tiles from Illustrator.
I'm totally open to any alternative workflow solutions or recommendations someone might suggest, but there are a few reasons why I've chosen the multi-page PDF approach. The Illustrations share global swatches and symbols and graphic styles and sometimes these items need to be tweaked. Editing everything in one file is faster than opening, changing, and saving 50-60 individual Illustrator files. My client often needs me to make alterations to the illustrations, and sometimes these Illustrations appear on more than one page and in different layouts. Using the one multi-page PDF helps everything stay nice and consistent across every layout and every page.
If anyone has any suggestions for how to speed up the Illustration export or alternative workflow recommendations, I'd love to discuss them.
Thanks!

As Scott said, the multiple artboards in CS4 are the most efficient way to do that and upgrading sure will help to streamline your workflow. Your problem is that each element needs to be stripped, possibly flattened and other data removed when creating the PDF and that can take its toll. The only other way to do it IMO would be some script that takes each layer of your doc and converts it to an individual AI file or PDF. It may just not have any advantage at all - scripts can be slow if a lot is goingon and it still would take time to save and convert the files.
Mylenium

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#target illustrator
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Hi,
Welcome to Adobe Forums.
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Please see the screen shot:
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Carlos,
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al pulsar aparacen un montón de foros se supone de programas pero en inglés,
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http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com/2011/03/convert-pdf-pages-to-illustrator.html
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Slow Illustrator Multi-Page PDF Export + Alternative Solutions

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