How to split up an 11*17 PDF into 8.5*11 pdfs in a batch

I was tossed a project at work to process ~ 500 large pdf's into smaller printable pieces by employees throughout the US.

Does anyone know of a way to batch out this process (feed in the .pdf files and have it dump out 2 8.5*11 pdf or jpeg files with no other interaction?

I have CS3 at my disposal; but have never run scripts; so if you go that route I need a lot of instruction.

Thanks in advance..

Well, it shouldn't be too much trouble to record an action, then run it on all of the files via Image Processor or a droplet. That would give you a whole bunch of jpegs.

However, what do the pdfs contain? If they are mostly text and/or vector art, it's not a great idea to rasterize them, unless you absolutely have to. Rasterized files will be (a) much bigger in file size; and (b) much poorer print quality; than the original vector pdfs.

If they are raster pdfs to begin with, then it's all good - go nuts!