I think what Jean is remembering is back when you could bring such a bitmap
into Illustrator as a special kind of template, where youu could view
it for tracing purposes. That was a very long time ago.




Oh, no... what I am remembering is bringing EPS 1 bit images in with transparent whites, just as I said. I have a few files around that I still print every so often that are built that way, but I don't feel like digging one up just now to check all the details.

You seem to be remembering bringing in PICTS, pre Illustrator 7, for the old style templates. I'm pretty sure the old style Illustrator templates (on Mac) use PICT format.

John, glad you got the job done.