Set white lines & strokes to transparent [Illustrator]

Question

Good evening!

I'm having a problem finishing a logo for a customer. Basically I made an effect like this with 2 text blocks and 2 white lines:

The letters J and C are 2 different text blocks with a white stroke of 2 pixels and then, in the middle of the letters 2 lines (white aswell).

The problem comes when I export it in png and use it in a different background (not white). It looks like this:

I've tried following what I saw in this post: How to create a transparent stroke in Illustrator and made the opacity of the strokes to 0 and then selected "knockout group" but this is how it looks now:

The problem here is:

• There's no space between the J and the C like the first picture.
• I wasn't able to do the same with the lines.

Is there a way to reach the effect of the first picture but with transparency instead of white?

Thanks you!!

Answer 1

If the intent is for this to end up a logo, you'd be best served to make outlines of all the text (Type>Create Outlines) which converts your logotype into straight vector art - not fonts with dressup stuff. then you expand the strokes of your white blocking, and use Pathfinder to union all the white blocking elements into one path; do the same for the J & C (that is, use pathfinder to union them), make sure your J&C path is int he rear, the use pathfinder crop to remove the white cutters from the J&C.

Hope that helps.