Thank you very much firstdefence! I had seen those already but reviewed them further after reading your explanationa and did some more experimenting and it makes much more sense now.
Ahh, thank you very much. So for instance, if I had a rectangle with a stroke but no fill over the top of an image and just selected the rectangle the exporting WITH the background would show the image inside of the rectangle and WITHOUT would leave it empty?
BTW, good grief you guys have amazing CS! Not only is it amazingly fast and super consistent for a software company but businesses across all industries could learn a thing or two from your team. Thanks a bunch!