| Format | Machines | Colours | Thumbnail | Broderly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PES | Brother, Baby Lock, some Bernina, recent Singer | Yes, Brother palette | Yes | Read and write |
| DST | Tajima and every commercial machine, Ricoma, Barudan, SWF, ZSK, Happy | No (.rgb file or run sheet) | No | Read and write |
| JEF | Janome, Elna | Yes, Janome palette | No | Read and write |
| VP3 | Husqvarna Viking, Pfaff | Yes, with thread names | No | Read and write |
| EXP | Melco, Bernina, bernette | Changes only | No | Read and write |
| HUS | Older Husqvarna Viking | Yes | No | Read, uncompressed write |
| XXX | Singer, Compucon | Yes | No | Read |
What an embroidery file is, and isn't
A machine embroidery file is a list of stitches: for each stitch, an x and y move in tenths of a millimetre, and sometimes a command (jump without stitching, trim, change colour, stop). It is not a drawing: enlarging an embroidery file by 30 % stretches the stitches without adding any, and density collapses. That is why the studio “re-digitizes” an imported file when you enlarge it by more than 15 %: it recovers the shapes and recalculates every stitch.
Formats differ in what they say around the stitches: colours (PES, JEF, VP3, HUS, XXX carry them; DST and EXP don't), the hoop (JEF, VP3), a thumbnail (PES), the trim encoding (explicit in PES, EXP, VP3; three jumps in DST; three zero jumps in JEF). Converting means translating those conventions without touching the stitches.
Go further
The studio is free to draw, open and check designs. Your first machine file takes five minutes.
Updated 2026-09-24.