How to select different part of pdf after placing in Illustrator

Question

I'm working in Illustrator CC 2019. I often need to place a pdf generated by someone else, and edit it in Illustrator to conform to the rest of the work. Every little component of each pdf seems to come in its own layer after placing. I don't understand how to navigate these layers and select the things I want to edit. I usually find myself clicking a thousand times in the same spot until I randomly hit the component I was trying to select. Can someone point me to the appropriate tutorial for this?

Monika Gause · Accepted Answer

I'm making scientific figures on a collaborative project where individual panels are variously generated by scripting languages R or python, or (unfortunately) Excel. Then sometimes I need to edit them in the context of the whole figure, so I import it as a pdf with "Link" unchecked. I made a dummy example but don't seem to be able to upload a pdf here.

Could you point me to a focused tutorial on the links panel and selection tools? Thanks!

You could start with this:

Organize content with layers |

Then this:

How to make selections in Illustrator

You might want to have a look at the plugin Select Menu by rj-graffix.com

Mohammad.Harb · Answer

the PDF files which you are trying to edit, have been saved without " preserve Illustrator Editing capabilities " in the save options.

so illustrator will make some operations to preserve the appearance of all design elements in pdf.

therefor, you can't make the edit easily. in this case you need to release clipping mask multiple times ctrl + alt + 7, ungrouping objects, ..

the best way to edit, ask the client to send the source illustrator file.

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