Thanks for the help. I ended up saving in version 9 to a cdr file in version 5, then I could open in X3.
Fred, I tried importing manually as .ai in file type, but above the notes box it says file format: EPS-Encapsulated Postscript, even though it's been saved as .ai file and the file type chosen is .ai. I can't open or import in .ai or in eps. I have no problems in version 9 with any of these files importing. Probably something I'm doing wrong here, but not sure what.
George