Embroidery software recommendations?

[Posylane]

We need a software program for building names and monograms. We are looking for a new program that will use true type fonts. We don't need to digitize.

We have used monogram wizard up till now for the majority of our work, and used Designshop on the occasion someone didn't like or want one of the monogram wizard fonts.

But we somehow seem to have lost the dongle for design shop, and it was not as user friendly as it could have been.

What are other options out there?

[pippin3]

Have you looked at Generations software?

[Posylane]

I didn't know about them so thank you for pointing me to them. I see they have a demo so I will try that. Do you activly use the software?

The only downside I can see (without having used the software) is that Pulse has 160 fonts optimized for embroidery. Are there scalable fonts optimized for embroidery available for Generations?

[Greenwing]

I am a monogram wizard reseller (good program for quick easy designs), a Brother software, an several others trainer. and have used many including Generations & other pro. software.
I now use Design Shop exclusively for Lettering.( at first I was lost but now I would not be with out it)
You have a very high level of control and the true type fonts are able to be used and converted to wire frame if necessary for editing.
I would say keep looking for your dongle.

[Mama Kass]

I would listen to Jerome; his advice is always spot-on. DS has a steep learning curve, but that is only because of the degree of control you have if you learn to use it.

[Posylane]

We turned the house upside down and have not found it. My biggest knock against Designshop is that every name we build is generally a different font. Designshop would index every font on the computer, so it took a long time between building the names to find the next font.

That said, once the font was selected, we did like how nice it was to edit the the makeup of the name. You think Designshop is ahead of the others in this regard? Have you used Pulse software? How does it compare?

[Monipezi]

suggest you try DRAWings 6 pro from Drawstitch - easy to use - vector based - uses all your installed fonts - has a monogram wizzard - and much more
see www.drawstitch.com (you even get a free app for your iphone for your embroidery files with limited editing options) - greetinggs from vienna - peter

[Posylane]

It was hard to figgure out the price of Drawings 6. We don't have Corel draw.

[Monipezi]

You don't need Corel Draw - DRAWings has its own build in editor - DRAWings is independent of any software and hardware and fully selfcontained

On the drawstitch website you will find all the resellers - the price in US $ is 1.299,-
On the drawstiitch website you can also download a fully functional demoversion of DRAWings 4 to test - however you can,t save the final embroidery file
If you like to know more we can also skype - I gladly explain all the details
greeting from Vienna - Peter

https://www.mpst.at

[Posylane]

Designshop and Wilcom have 'digitized' fonts. I presume these are cleaned up fonts that have less embroidery issues. It does not look like DRAWings has digitized fonts, just uses TTF? Are there issues with using TTF fonts?

[Greenwing]

In a word Yes.

Now if the program has the ability and DRAWings Does
then you can fix most of the problems with true type fonts by editing them.
A Digitized alphabet is NOT a font.
it can be used nowhere but in the software it was created for.
It carries coding that will only be used for embroidery.
Someone has gone and directed the stitching and all elements.
True type fonts are a type of vector image so all the software does is
auto digitize it. And we all know the errors that can occur in auto digitizing.

[Rod or Sharon]

Let me see if I can answer your question......yes...yes...yes...yes...yes and yes!

There are very few TTF fonts that can provide quality embroidery unless they have or can be edited. Some turn out to be short of ridiculous. This is because for a TTF font to be converted into embroidery, the program, doesn't matter which one, must "auto digitize" it. Sometimes a person is lucky and will get one to be ok, but for the most part, you really need to know something about how to edit and/or digitize to some degree to be successful in getting any kind of quality embroidery from a TTF font.

Design Shop does a very good job on the TTF fonts, but you will still need to know how to edit......pull comp column widths, stitch lengths, densities, etc, etc......

Rod Springer
Amaya Tech & Trainer

[Monipezi]

with drawing you get over 250 pre-digitized fonts - each letter in those fonts has been individially prepared for perfect satin stitches.
even if drawings is based on vector graphic and does most of the work for you in preparing the embroidery objects you do have full control of all embroidery settings - even changing more then just one stitch-direction on individual letters in all tru- and opentype fonts with a few clicks - and all in visible 3d simulation directly on your screen.
We are aware that not all tru & opentype fonts as suitable for embroidery - however you can see the result immidiately in 3D sticthes on your screen and judge for yourself.

[pippin3]

I have ELS Embroidery Lettering software for sale if you are interested in that. Just let me know.

[Posylane]

Pippin3, I am looking for something that has a large selection of pre-digitized fonts, and I can't use a font unless I can find the ttf version of the font as well.

I got a demo of Wilcom E3 lettering this morning and was very impressed with how quickly we can build names and monograms with it. We build about 15,000 different names and monograms over a year, so it is very important that we don't have to spend much time generating each one.