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I want to make a text effect and for that I want a transparent background. My question arises from here; how do I get a transparent background? I am using Illustrator CC.

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    Hi user42843, thanks for your question. Could you tell us what you tried that didn't work? Always good to show some effort, and your chances for a good answer increase. If you have any questions, please see the help center or ping one of us in chat once your reputation is sufficient (20). Keep contributing and enjoy the site!
    – Vincent
    Commented Apr 25, 2015 at 15:04

4 Answers 4

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The background is transparent. It is just emulating paper so you can not see it. A block of white is different from the white background.

You can enable Photoshop like transparency grid by choosing View → Show transparency grid (ctrl / cmd + shift + D). On top of that make sure: save for web has transparency enabled. The transparency grid is just a view option, the white background is still transparent, transparency grid or not. (one learns quite quickly to appraise the transparency even without the grid, which can be distracting)

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    This is a naive interpretation of the question. But its hard to tell there might not be enough info. If this didn't answer your intended question then edit your question.
    – joojaa
    Commented Apr 25, 2015 at 7:04
  • This is a problem. I need to draw white text on transparent background. But I don't see text because everything is white... But thanks, your answer helped
    – user924
    Commented Jun 1, 2019 at 13:18
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The background already exists as transparent. If you're trying to export for Web and getting a white background then you may be using a image type in the export that doesn't support transparencies. PNG or Gif will fix this.

It's hard to tell what you're asking for.

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Its 2019 and now a things are a bit different. You need to set the Transparency mode in AI even when exporting to PNG.

enter image description here

Notice the tiny Gear icon on the right. This is often missed.

Thenenter image description here

Then finally you can set the Transparent bacgkground mode.

Then enter image description here

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    Of course ... the tiny gear-icon! (?!!!) It has nothing to do with 'Android' or 'iOS', naturally, despite being visually grouped with these. Bad Adobe - a UX fail.
    – David Bullock
    Commented Jan 17, 2021 at 14:52
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On the top of the Adobe Illustrator menu bar choose "view" scroll down to "show transparent grid" and select it.

Additionally you can use the shortcut Shift+Ctrl+D

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    welcome to GD.SE. Your answer doesn't add anything new
    – Luciano
    Commented Jul 22, 2016 at 9:54
  • Indeed. Downvoted...
    – Gwyneth Llewelyn
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 18:38

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