Embroidery Viewer: PES DST JEF

"How many colors is this, and how many stitches? Will it fit my hoop?"
— A tool for answering that before the file goes anywhere near the machine.

■ What it does

[See the design]
Open a file and the design is drawn stitch by stitch. Pinch to zoom right in.

[Stitch count, colors, finished size]
Stitches, colors and the finished size in mm or inches — know whether it fits your hoop before you stitch.

[Thread order, usage and numbers]
Color 1 for this many stitches, color 2 for that many, in order — check you have enough thread before you line the spools up. Brother and Janome files also show thread names and the maker's thread numbers, so you know what to buy.

[Follow the stitching order]
Drag the slider and watch the design build from the first stitch.

[Show jump stitches]
Overlay the jumps between color blocks as dotted lines. Lots of jumps means lots of trimming.

[Change the thread colors]
Tap a swatch and pick a color to match the thread on your shelf, or show a customer "how about this one?". Your choice is remembered per file.

[Open a ZIP as it is]
Downloaded designs usually arrive as a .zip. Open it without unzipping. Several designs inside? Pick one from the list.

[Wilcom .emb: preview and info]
Open a .emb to see the preview picture stored in the file, with the size, stitch count, number of colors and the thread colors (with thread numbers when the file records them).

[Share]
Send a picture of the design with its size and stitch count to a friend or customer through any app. The design file itself is not sent.

[Save as an image / Export as DST]
Save the whole design as a sharp 2048px picture. Or write a .pes from a home machine out as .dst, the format commercial machines expect.

■ Formats

15 formats open fully: .pes .pec (Brother) / .dst .tap (Tajima, Happy) / .jef (Janome) / .exp (Melco, Bernina) / .vp3 (Husqvarna Viking) / .pcd .pcq .pcs .pcm (Pfaff) / .xxx (Singer) / .u01 .dsb (Barudan) / .dsz (ZSK)
Plus .emb (Wilcom): preview picture and design info.

Open straight from your file manager or an email attachment — just pick Stitchia. If a file cannot be opened, the app lists the formats it can open.

■ What is different here

• Your files stay on this device. The app never uploads or sends the design files you open. No account.
• 15 formats in one app — no swapping apps for each machine.
• For these 15 formats it draws the actual stitches, not the small preview image in the file, so zooming in shows one stitch at a time.
• Switch between mm and inches.

■ Limitations

This is a viewer. It does not create or edit designs.

.emb (Wilcom): only the preview picture and design info are shown. The stitches cannot be displayed or turned into another format, because Wilcom protects them. Stitch playback, color changes and DST export are not available for .emb.

About color: .dst, .exp and .u01 carry no color information. Colors shown for those files are placeholders — only the stitching order is real, and the app says so on screen.

Finished size is calculated from the needle coordinates stored in the file. Fabric stretch, stabilizer and hooping change the real result.

■ Ads and purchase

• Ads are a banner at the top only. No full-screen ad interrupts you while you look at a design. One full-screen video plays only when you tap “Watch a video — 60 min ad-free” yourself.
• A one-time purchase removes ads and nothing else. All formats and features are there whether or not you buy.

■ Need help?

If something doesn't work or you have a question, feel free to email [email protected]. The same address is in the app's settings.