Well like everything even in embroidery business offering custom embroidery digitizing services, we have different types of machines which are used for making embroidered logos, patches, designs, badges etc. Now each machine has its own unique way of embroidery and they have their own way of sewing out. Some of the famous embroidery machines are:-
1. Brother PE540D
2. Janome 12000 Memory Craft
3. Singer Futura XL-400
4. Brother DZ820E
5. Janome Memory Craft 200E
6. Brother SE400
7. Singer SE300
8. Brother PE770

Since, there are different machines it means there will be different digitizing software’s also as one single software will not be compatible on all the machines. Each machine will have its own loops and stitch method so as per that one has to choose the digitizing software or vice versa.

Some of the commonly used digitizing software are:-

1. SewWhat-Pro (SWP}
2. Thred
3. Size It! By Amazing Designs
4. Punto Embroidery Digitiser
5. PE-Design by Brother
6. Millennium III by Proel TSI
7. MasterWorks Lite by Designer’s Gallery
8. Monogram It! By Amazing Designs
9. Letter It! By Amazing Designs
10. Hatch Embroidery by Wilcom
11. Generations Automatic Digitizing Software by Notcina Corporation
12. Floriani Embroidery Suite by G7 Solutions & RNK LLC
13. FontWorks by Designer’s Gallery
14. EQStitch by The Electric Quilt Company
15. EmbroideryWare by JimmySoft LLC
16. EmbroideryStudio by Wilcom
17. Embroidermodder
18. Embrilliance StitchArtist, BriTon Leap, Inc.
19. Embird
20. Elna DigitizerEX by Elna, Inc.
21. Elna CustomizerEX by Elna, Inc.
22. Digitizer MB by Janome
23. DG/ML by Pulse Microsystems
24. Digitize ‘N Stitch by Amazing Designs
25. Creative DRAWings by DRAWSTITCH Ltd.
26. Creative 4D Design Creator by Pfaff
27. BuzzEdit v3 by Buzz Tools Inc
28. Buzz-2-Stitches by Buzz Tools Inc
29. Brother BES4 Dream Edition Embroidery Lettering Software
30. Bernina Embroidery Software Version 7 by Wilcom
31. AutoPunch by Singer
32. Applique It! by Amazing Designs

Each digitizing software will give its unique format which a particular machine can run to make it into a patch. The file formats fall under two categories one is the source format which is the primary file format of the embroidery digitizing software and the second file format is the machine formats which are specific to a particular brand of embroidery machine. The major difference between the source file format and the machine file formats is that primary file formats are easily editable; that is they can be easily resized, edited and scaled whereas the same is not possible with machine file formats.

Here are some embroidery machines and the source file formats which run on them:-

1. PES – Babylock/Brother
2. SEW – Elna/New Home, Janome 8000/9000
3. HUS – Viking 1+/Rose/Iris/Scandinavia
4. SHV – Viking Designer 1
5. ART – Bernina Artista
6. JEF – Janome 10,000/11,000/300E/350E
7. XXX – Singer
8. PCS – Pfaff
9. EMD – Elna/Singer
10. VIP – Viking/Pfaff
11. VP3 – Viking/Pfaff
12. DST – Tajima
13. CSD – Singer
14. PSW – Singer

Usually embroidery machines have one or two machine formats which are particular to their brand. But we have seen that some formats like .dst of Tajima’s, exp/cnd format of Melco’s and ,fdr source format of Barundan’s have become so popular and effective that they have become industry standard formats and very often these formats are supported by all the embroidery machines be it even of a rival company. So we can say these are the universal digitizing formats and will run on most of the embroidery machines world over.

I hope this post reflects some light on the type of digitizing softwares and embroidery machines. To get the perfect patch the right combination of both mind and machine is needed.