How to convert all white - alpha for vector image?

Question

I'm attempting to make a new font. Currently I've been saving all the png -> vector images that I work with as .AI files, so that I can import them into my font program later, and they open fine in illustrator. The problem is, I usually save my vector images with a white background instead of alpha. Now, I need to replace white with alpha, but I can't find a magic wand in illustrator . Any help?

Answer 1

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I only knew the most fundamental differences between raster and vector: that raster images are saved in dots while vector images are saved in, at the simpliest, lines.
Not "dots";  pixels. Pixels are simply color values. That's all. Raster programs arrange color values in a rectangular grid of same-size rectangles (usually squares).
Not "lines"; paths. Paths are discrete individual objects. Paths are stacked, independently moved, freely arranged, scaled, filled, stroked, and otherwise manipulated as individual objects.
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But I'd have thought there was a way to quickly delete the white lines
There is no "vector image" with a background. Where there are no objects, there is no "background." If a path is there, regardless of whether it has a white fill, a white stroke, or fill(s) and/or stroke(s) of any other color or no color at all, the path is there and can be deleted. (Again, there is no substitute for learning to use the program from the documentation.)
Technically, paths are mathematically-defined curves. So even a "straight line" is a path, and is technically a curve. The specific kind of mathematically-defined curve used in programs like Illustrator is called a Bezier curve.
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I have no idea how hard it is to create a vector image from scratch.
It's not rocket science. Anyone can learn it. But again, you have to learn it. There is no substitute for learning to use the program from the documentation.
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I myself am mostly a newbie in both hemispheres of the graphic design world.
It shows. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that. We all started as beginners. I'm not trying to belittle you: I'm offering you sound advice that will serve as a very valuable shortcut to becoming more than a beginner (if you will accept it) without an unnecessary amount of fumbling around with bad practices.
Just don't ever claim to a client or in a job interview to know anything at all about any mainstream general-purpose vector drawing program (of which Illustrator is just one) until you are proficient at drawing Bezier curves. That's prerequisite. It's lesson one in chapter one. Might as well start there. Start at the correct beginning and you'll know all the answers to the questions you have asked in this thread. Your understanding of "background" and things like why a region with no objects is not the same thing as an alpha channel in a raster image will come very early if you just start at the beginning. You've got to learn the lay of the land. Start at the beginning.
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In any case, I use a program called vectormagic that does the work for me pretty well, so you might want to check it out.
Trust me; I'm familiar with it. It's just another autotrace program. I know what it does. I know how "well" it does it. Everything I said in the previous post stands.
Vector drawing programs are not the kind of program you learn by just launching it and poking around. Not if you want to avoid endless confusion and frustration. Asking random questions in an online user forum (in which wrong "answers" are just as common as right answers) everytime you encounter a point of confusion is just as inefficient. Read the documentation.
JET