Compatibility and testing

What every file goes through

Before a file is offered for download, we read it back with our own reader and compare it with the design, stitch by stitch and color by color. A file that does not match is never offered. The one difference we accept: VP3 stores where each color starts in 0.1 mm steps, so a color can sit up to 0.1 mm off; within a color every stitch is exact.

Every design stays within what a home machine sews well: stitches from 0.25 to 7.6 mm, and at most 24 needle holes in any square millimetre.

Our writers produce the same bytes as the open-source reference (pystitch, which Ink/Stitch uses) for 94 test designs in all six formats, and our readers read 1,012 files, damaged ones included, exactly as it does.

Matched against the manufacturers’ own files

• PES: the header follows 351 real PES files from Brother, Baby Lock, Hatch and Bunnycup: up to 10×10 cm version 1 with the 100×100 hoop, up to 13×18 cm version 1 with 130×180, larger designs version 4 with the smallest hoop that holds them.
• EXP and INF: Bernina puts a color file (INF) of the same name next to every EXP (24 INF files in 6 free Bernina packages); ours follows Bernina’s layout.
• JEF, VP3, XXX: the same structure as Janome’s files, VSM’s (Husqvarna Viking, Pfaff) and Bernina’s exports.

Which format for which machine

• Brother, Baby Lock and many Bernette models: PES.
• Janome and Elna: JEF. Janome MC10000, MC9700, MC9500, MC370E, MC350E, MC300E and MC200E read only JEF.
• Bernina: EXP, with its INF color file next to it.
• Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff: VP3.
• Singer: XXX (e.g. Legacy SE300 and SE340); Singer SE9150 and SE9180 read VP3 only.
• Almost every machine and embroidery program: DST, which stores no thread colors.

Machine limits we design for

From manufacturers’ manuals and support pages, the weakest documented machine per hoop size:

• 4×4″ (100×100 mm): 30,000 stitches, 63 colors (Brother support, SE600, SE630, PE535).
• 5×7″ (130×180 mm): 50,000 stitches, 63 colors (Brother support, PE800, SE1900).
• 6×10″ (160×260 mm): 50,000 stitches (Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade 35 user’s guide, p. 75).
• 8×8″ and larger: 200,000 stitches (Janome Australia data sheets, MC400E, MC500E, MC550E, MB-7).

Where a manufacturer contradicts itself, we follow the lower number. Brother home machines with 4×4 and 5×7 hoops do not cut jumps within a color (SE600/SE630 manual, p. 68), so we join the parts of a color under stitching sewn later wherever we can: fewer threads to cut by hand.

Not verified yet

Everything above is checked by software against real files and manuals. These points can only be settled on a machine and are open:

• A real stitch-out of each example design, at least on Brother (PES) and Janome (JEF).
• Whether older Brother machines with a 6×10 hoop (e.g. ULT2001) list our version 4 PES files larger than 13×18 cm.
• Whether Janome machines with large hoops (RE28, SQ23) read the hoop code the way Elna machines do.
• Whether Bernina machines show the thread chart names of our INF files as expected.

The stitched pictures on this site are drawn from the stitches of the real files, a simulation, not photos of stitched pieces. The portraits in the examples are AI-generated pictures.

Who checks this

Reviewed by Christoffer Sidiropoulos, who runs Pinpunto. Found a machine that does not read one of our files? Write to contact@pinpunto.com: we answer, and the result lands on this page.