Hi Martin,

> Marc, did you open the PDF directly in AI? I had success by importing
> the PDF. See my previous post.

That's interesting - does using "Open" versus "Import" in Illustrator for PDF files do different things with organizing the PDF content?

Using .ai format should probably work better though, can you test the above AI file and see if it comes in with the expected layer structure ok?

Then only quirk about AI format is that the image is generated separately from the .ai file itself and it's placed as a linked image in the AI file. That was the only way I could find to make an image with alpha come through into Illustrator using the AI v8 format.

So when you save to AI format there will be this "companion file" PNG background image that goes along with it.

- Michael