Background is not transparent

[kdin...@gmail.com]

Hi guys,

I have an issue that I can't seem to be able to get around.

I have sketched some icons on paper (black ink on white paper), then scanned into tiff format. I then opened the file in illustrator and saved as SVG format (after make and expand). When I imported the SVG file to icomoon, the background shown up as white, not transparent. How can I make the background transparent?

Many thanks for your help.

[Keyamoon]

As mentioned in the importing guide, you should use subtraction instead of white fills. Subtract the shape on top from the background and make sure you only have one color in your icon.

[kdin...@gmail.com]

Hi Keyamoon,

Thanks for your reply. I've checked Illustrator and there doesn't seem to be a subtraction option. There are: unite, minus front, intersect, exclude, divide, trim, merge, crop, outline, minus back options in the pathfinder. I'm using Illustrator version 17.0.0

I have tried each of the options above but none seems to give the right result. Do you know which one would be the right function? My icons only have black color but they were drawn on white background.

Thanks again.

[Keyamoon]

If you only have black fills, then you should simply remove the white background. No need to use any of those boolean operations.

[kdin...@gmail.com]

Hi Keyamoon,

Thanks for the prompt reply. Much appreciated!

I have tried to get rid of the white background in photoshop and saved the image as PNG. I then opened it in Illustrator and went through the make and expand and saved as SVG but the result was still the same (with the white background) when uploaded onto icomoon.

Did I do anything incorrectly or any other way I should try? Is there any way I can remove the white background using Illustrator?

[Keyamoon]

You should be able to remove it in Illustrator.

If you attach your SVG, I'll be able to take a look.

[kdin...@gmail.com]

Hi Keyamoon,

Thanks for the reply.

I've just found out a way to get rid of the background by accident last night :D.

First I opened the scanned file in Illustrator; then I chose 'make and expand' to trace the icons. I used the magic wand tool to select the icons after that and then used invert select to select the background. Finally, I just hit delete to delete the background and saved as SVG file. It worked well! It took me days trying to figure this out and then it just happened! :)

Thanks again for helping me so far!

Cheers.