Converting eps to pdf in Preview

I have a large quantity of eps files that I would prefer to be in a much more useful and accessible format.

In tests that I have made, I have found that Preview is not only very fast at converting the eps files to pdfs, it also crops them to their bounding box and results in an extremely tight file size.

I would love to use Preview now to convert my collection but it is a massive job and I need to batch convert them, resaving converted pdfs back into the same folders with their original names or some sensible over-arching name + numbers for sets of files.

Also useful would be to create a custom preview icon on each file so I can scour them in Finder

I looked at Automator and smart folders to do this for me, but I can't see how to actually get it to work. It only shows bitmap formats in the Preview actions.

Anybody have any practical solutions?

I could see similar tasks with other file formats as being extremely useful too.

Thanks for any assistance you can offer.

btw iPhoto doesn't like pdfs! Any other way to get a neat catalog of the collection when I'm finished?

Beaut iMac G5 2Ghz + G4 400 AGP upgraded to G4 1000 that bombs all the time Mac OS X (10.4.9)