Trouble importing PDF into Illustrator

You may also try:

- Place the .pdf as a linked file (it's important to link it).

- While the linked file is selected, go to the Transparancy palette an set its opacity to 99 %.

- Object > Flatten Transparency (Raster/Vector Balance: 100).

- After that you'd have to do some clean up (e.g. remove white filled objects, remove clipping paths and doing some pathfinder operations).

But it should work that way.

Thanks again for the replies everyone.  You guys identified the problem as being too many verticies in the PDF file.  I was able to solve the issues by exporting the map in 3 different pieces then reassembling them in Illustrator.  It also helped to convert the shapefiles from polygons to lines in QGIS before exporting.  I hope this will be helpful for others in the future!

Thank you for the replies everyone!  I think placing it and using the image trace tool is probably my best option.  If I discover another way to do it, I'll post it here. 

I tried opening it up, and it looks the same as your screenshot. However, I can place it (File > Place), and have it look like the PDF that opens in Acrobat. I imagine there's something about the way QGIS handles an image with a lot of anchor points.

If you'd like to get it to where you can use it as a vector, I'd recommend using Image Trace with advanced options. Go to Window > Image Trace to open its panel. Try these settings: 

• Preset: Black and White Logo
• Threshold: 254
• (Twirl open Advanced) Paths: 100%
• Corners: 100%
• Noise: 1 px
• Check Ignore White

Then click Expand in the Properties panel. You can use the Knife Tool, the Eraser Tool, or the Scissors Tool to remove the rectangle.

After playing with your file in Acrobat, Illusatrator, and Photoshop, I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "shape" file. From what I can see, it's a 600 ppi pixel image. So it's not vector shapes. You could try using Image Trace (Window > Image Trace), but I don't think you'll have very good results.

Probably too many anchor points on the paths.

I seem to remember someone posting a solution to this some months ago. But I don't remember how to do this in Acrobat. It would mean to reduce complexity of paths which will of course make your map less detailed.