When you buy an Embroidery Machine you have this wonderful idea that with the touch of a switch, it will magically fill all your fabrics and clothes with beautiful embroidery designs. You will just take a photo or artwork in whatever format and the machine will stitch it out for you – it is true to a degree, but with some caveats.
If you want your own personalized designs, you need embroidery software that will digitize your files so that your machine will understand how to stitch it. And deciding which one to buy involves so much of your hard-earned money that you will probably read all the 10000… articles written about it before you make a final decision.. Like I did.
If you just want to edit your designs, you can do that with simple embroidery editing software. In these, you resize or merge designs and convert the designs into different formats. But if you also want to create your designs from scratch from your own drawing or photo or edit a stock image and make them your own, you need Embroidery digitizing software programs.
When you buy high-end embroidery machines they come with some free and some trial software that lets you do things on it – I believed that those were digitizing software. But found out later that they usually are the base software in which you may just be able to edit your existing designs, and if you are lucky a little bit of digitization or do full digitization for a limited time. For eg. When you buy Janome machines you get their Artistic Digitizer Jr (which does basic auto digitization) free for life. But you will have to pay for their upgraded version for more professional designing.
But if you also want to create your designs, edit them and make them your own and embroider with those customized designs you need Embroidery digitizing software programs. They let you digitize images that you scan and feed into the machine, ready to be embroidered.
What you buy can also depend on what you want to do with your machine – if you just want to embroider stock designs and occasionally create some lettered patches, you can just buy Lettering programs.
To choose the best software program is not so easy but luckily most of them have trial versions. First of all, you have to decide on the purpose and what you want from the program. And also the skill you have in using a computer. Most programs have a learning curve and you will have to make an effort to learn the basics and realize that you can become an expert only after several hours/days/months spend tinkering with it.
Embroidery digitizing software
Embird
I am mentioning this first because this was the one in my radar for the longest time – because it is the most affordable among a lot of very costly ones. One of the reasons it is inexpensive is because it has a tiered system – you buy a basic program first and then supplement this with add-ons – for digitizing there is an add-on, for lettering another one, for photo stitching another one and then another one for cross stitching..
You can check it out using a 30 day trial (or 100 uses) for the full software and buy only the modules you want. But everyone has to buy their basic module first and then add-ons are added for extra functionalities.
Add-ons: They have Studio (Digitizing software) Iconizer ( to see thumbnails of the designs), and Cross stitch module. Font engine is their letter creating module. All of them are very easy to use and highly recommended by long term users.
As per their website ” Embird Font Engine combines embroidery lettering tool and graphics in vector file format. It creates embroidery lettering from common Windows fonts in TrueType and OpenType format. It is also possible to use it with 3rd party ready-made embroidery alphabets” – so you can use the fonts you have in your computer already with this software.
The Facebook groups for this software are active and very helpful with all your doubts. You can also buy tutorials to use the software.
There is one downside to this very easy to use and very efficient tool – for consecutive updates after the first year, every year you will have to shell out extra- I mean, updates are not free. You can ofcourse use them without updates, but when you decide to update you will have to pay the extra for those years too (at least a portion).
Checkout their products here.
Embrilliance
This is a very popular choice for digitizing and editing designs – said to be a professional’s delight, which is at the same time affordable at around $350 for the digitizing version – Stitch Artist Level 2.
You can start by getting the Embrilliance Express (free) which is a lettering program which uses BX fonts. You can test out this free version but it is limited in its capabilities. You can view designs and convert formats and do some editing. It can create lettering files but you cannot open files to add lettering to them and you cannot save anything. You will have to upgrade the version to Embrilliance Essentials (the next level) to be able to merge designs or resize designs.
Embrilliance Essentials module is the full basic editing module, which you will have to pay for. Embrilliance works great on Macbooks and Windows PCs. You can merge designs, resize them, resizing, removing overlapped areas, and manipulate text . You can buy BX fonts from other sources and install them and use them on this platform. Enthusiasts is another module with the knockdown stitch and lets us make intertwined fonts easily.
For the ability to see the actual design (as thumbnails) on a flash drive or USB you will have to buy a Thumbnailer. It helps in organizing and finding your designs easily.
Unlike Embird, the software updates for the level you have purchased is free forever. It also comes with a 90 day money back guarantee, as per their website.
Facebook groups with several helpful members answering each and every one of your queries is definitely a boon to all the inexperienced but eager to learn new Embrilliance owners. You can find one such group here. In YouTube you can search for Embrilliance tutorials or Embrilliance BX fonts and you will get to see and learn from many video tutorials.
Checkout the website of Embrilliance Embroidery Software here.; They have a youtube channel which is also useful
SewArt
SewArt is an auto-digitizing tool for beginners that cost less that $100; it is inexpensive! And it is available to try on a 28 day trial basis.
They have a Facebook group with many super active users responding to your queries. Learning how to use it is a breeze with the many YouTube videos available. Subsequent Updates are all free.
One disadvantage is that if you own a Mac you will need to use another program to use it. ( Windows Emulator). And experts always scoff at autodigitizing – which is justifiable to a degree – machine does not do as good a job as an expert human (at least not yet).
It is a great user-friendly program to edit and create design. It is inexpensive and works nicely for auto digitizing. The same company has other digitizing tools too.
Check out more details on Sewwhat pro here.
Embroideryware
If you are on the look out for digitizing software that does not break the bank, this is the one for you. They have comparison pages with all the costlier software – and all of them are favourable to embroideryware. At around $120 for full on digitizing features like manual digitizing, creating applique designs, it is a very good option for the budget-embroiderer.
If you grab the free trial version of EmbroideryWare you can use all the features of the program for 30 days. Checkit out here.
Inkstitch
Inkstitch (Add on for Inkscape, the open source vector design software) is free; yes, in the world of super expensive digitizing programs, this one is absolutely free. And, it is said that, with it you can do anything that you can do with most of the paid software out there.
Check out the tutorials in this youtube channel and start from there if you are really on a budget and want to do digitizing without spending anything for software.
But, as with all DIY, the learning curve is so steep that you may be tempted to leave all digitizing to experts and continue to just look at your embroidery machine in fascination as it stitches designs (made by others).
You are on your own installing inkscape, inkstitch as an extensions and all the things that follows including creating vector objects, mastering the node tools, assigning stitch parameters etc. But once you know them all (involving a lot of trial, error, and patience), you are invincible!.
Design Doodler
This auto-digitizing tool has its own place in the digitizing world – imagine just doodling something on your ipad and then it magically becoming an embroidery file and coming out stitched on your t shirt – it is possible with this tool.
A good price point of $400 and a very creative embroidery digitizing tool for all your ideas : any one would be tempted. But, the website itself warns that it cannot be a substitute for real digitizing. For stitching efficiency and precision, nothing beats manual designing. But for fun and creative designs, You can check it out here.
Hatch Embroidery Digitizer
Hatch is great digitizing tool (by Wilcom International) – many experts vouch for it, but it seemed very costly to me. But the features seems to make it more than worthy – highly advanced auto digitizing, perfect and easy manual digitizing and you can even trace with a pen on windows based tablets. Even better than this is their flagship product – Wilcom EmbroideryStudio.
They have great fonts available – it comes with the program. It also comes with a free 30 day trial for the full functional software. And great customer support from the site and through Facebook groups. Several Youtube videos are also available online teaching you how to use the program.
Check it out here.
Creativate
This is a subscription based software – digitizing tool comes to around $40 per month. So, if you do not like it, you can always cancel and use it whenever you want. It used to be Mysewnet earlier and comes bundled with high end singer machines for a limited subscription period.
Floriani Software
Floriani Total Control-U software, Floriani Lettering software are all powerful software with many features and great digitizing capabilities. They are available for a one time fee (with free subsequent updates)
Checkout more details here.
Artistic Designer (Full or Jr) : A lot of high end embroidery machines come bundled with design editing software. Artistic Designer Jr. is bundled free with memory craft embroidery machines of Janome.
The Jr. version is good enough for a lot of designing purposes – even autodigitizing simple shapes. It also lets you resize, rotate, combine, and make basic adjustments to designs. The full suit will have to be purchased seperately and does a lot of extra things like making applique designs, manual digitizing etc.
Other embroidery software programs to check out.
Stitch Buddy is a very inexpensive program and does a great job of modifying and editing embroidery designs the way you want it. It is for Macs and devices with iOS ie you can do all these on your iPad and iPhones also.
PE design is the editing software of Brother. You can upgrade to the digitizing versions of these software.
My Editor is a free tool and you can view and modify embroidery files and then save them in any embroidery file formats with this.But as a free tool this one has many limitations, understandably.
BES Lettering is software program from the sewing machine brand Brother – you can easily create designs and then edit them as well. It also comes with a wireless upgrade kit for many Brother machines and you can transfer the designs wirelessly to the machine with it.
Whichever software program you choose, ensure that they give you good after sales customer service with an active Facebook group or page with many involved members who can clear your doubts, a customer care number or email to respond to your technical difficulties, without much delay and many you tube videos made by experts to teach you how to use the software.
Related posts : Basic supplies needed for machine embroidery for beginners.
