Features

The following tables list the features included with each level or add-on of Pattern Maker.

Common Features

These features are included in both the Standard and Professional levels.

FABRIC
Fabric size up to 999x999 full stitches
Fabric options including color, stitch size, & grid style
DRAWING
Stitches supported: full, half, quarter, petite, back/straight, specialty (over 50), French Knots, beads
Flexible back stitch and straight stitch
Draw back stitches in either point-to-point or tracing mode
Can repeat the initial orientation of a quarter or half stitch when drawing a sequence of stitches
Text entry feature including 25 alphabets by *Kooler Design Studio*
EDITING
Rectangular shaped selection tool
Cut, copy, paste, flip, rotate, flood fill, fill back-stitched area
Selected stitches 'float' above non-selected stitches and are visible while dragging to allow easy positioning
Enhanced flood fill tool which automatically uses quarter stitches
Center a selection horizontally or vertically
Eyedropper tool for displaying and/or selecting the stitch color and/or stitch type of a stitch pointed-to via the mouse
Zoom tool for magnifying a selected area of the design
Multi-level undo of edits (up to 100)
FLOSS PALETTE
Up to 240 colors per design
Floss/thread brands include: DMC® Anchor® J&P Coats Au Ver A Soie, Soie d'Alger® Caron Collection ( Antica, Impressions®, Rachel, Watercolours®, Waterlilies®, Wildflowers®) Danish Flower Thread DMC® Rayon Eterna Silk(TM) ( MiniTwist, Silk Twist, Stranded) The Gentle Art ( Sampler Threads, Simply Shaker) Ginnie Thompson Flower Thread® Needle Necessities ( Empress Silk, Floss, French Wool, Madras, Opalescence, Pearl 5, Pearl 8, Spring II, Velour 18) Weeks Dye Works(TM) Kreinik ( Blending Filament, Braid, Cable, Cord, Ribbon, Japan, Ombre, Silk Bella(TM), Silk Mori(TM), Silk Mori Milkpaint(TM), Silk Serica(TM)) Mill Hill® ( Glass Seed Bead, Antique Glass Seed Bead, Petite Glass Seed Bead, Frosted Glass Seed Bead, Crayon Seed Bead, Pebble Glass Bead, Magnifica Glass Bead) Note that while we strive to supply color representations that are as accurate as possible when displayed on a computer, it not possible to perfectly represent the color of floss/thread. For floss/thread that is variegated, over dyed, or hand dyed, the program represents the thread using a single solid color. It is especially important with these brands that you have actual color samples available when you are selecting colors for a design.
Machine embroidery thread brands: ARC (Poly, Rayon) Brother® DMC® Machine Embroidery Isacord Janome Madeira® ( Poly Neon, Rayon) Marathon ( Poly, Rayon) Mettler ( Silky Sheen, Poly Sheen, Embroidery) Robison-Anton ( Polyester, Rayon) Sulky® Rayon
Blended colors (up to 4 colors per blend)
Interactive palette options bar (changes to the design are visible as the palette is edited)
Automatic symbol selection
Cross-stitch symbol font provided (224 symbols)
Can use any TrueType font
Can use symbols from more than one font in a design
Stitch usage summary which shows a tally of stitches used and estimated amount of floss needed
Customizable stitch display thickness (per strand setting)
Strand selection per palette color and per stitch type (up to 12 strands)
Symbol selection per stitch type
Symbol color, size, and style selection for full, half, quarter, petite, French knots, and bead stitches.
Symbol options for back, straight, specialty, French knot, and bead stitches
Symbol options including color-behind symbols and triangular/square color blocks for quarter stitches
Palette note per color and stitch type
Color brand conversion using editable conversion tables and by color matching
Can add same color to a palette multiple times for allowing different settings such as strand count
IMAGE IMPORTING (more info)
Image formats: BMP, PCX, GIF, WMF, JPEG, TIFF plus more
Scan directly into the program using a TWAIN compliant scanner
Two methods for importing: Importing Wizard and Interactive Importing. Wizard method provides a step-by-step approach that is good while learning the program. Interactive method allows options to be accessed in any order with the results of a change being visible immediately.
Converts image into full stitches.
Can include image as an underlay for manual tracing of the image
Import into a new design or a selected area of an existing design
Multiple palette options: Import using a selected brand of floss; Import using a user-selected palette of color; Import using the current palette of an existing design (when importing into an existing design).
User-selectable number of colors per design. Use up to 240 color per design.
Enhanced color-reduction techniques for reducing the number of colors needed for good results
Background selection tool for selecting areas of the image that should not be imported
Foreground selection tool for selecting areas of the image that should be given more priority when selecting colors.
Image adjustments (color, saturation, contrast, brightness, & cropping)
Grid alignment tool for aligning the grid of an image to the grid of the new design. Also calculates the required pattern size.
Fine control of sizing and positioning for underlay images when manually aligning the image with the design grid
DISPLAY
Display design as stitches, symbols, or solids
Detailed design information display
Rulers for displaying the stitch position
Display a pattern using multiple windows with each having independent settings
Open multiple designs at a time
Edge outlining of stitches for enhanced readability.
PRINTING
Print design as stitches, symbols, or solids
Detailed design information print-out
Print preview
Stitch numbering along edges of chart
Shaded stitch repeats between pages
Selectable header/footer, and selectable page margins
ADDITIONAL
Color Management support for improving the presentation of color. When color profiles are available and installed for your monitor and printer, this feature allows you to display a soft proof or print a hard proof of a design.
Selectable toolbars for providing many options only a click away
Pattern preview in File Open dialog box for making it easy to locate an existing design
Optional re-opening of designs that were open when the program was last used
Library feature (organize pattern elements for easy reuse)
Update wizard for assisting in the download and installation of program updates
Complete built-in help
30 professionally designed patterns by The Vermillion Stitchery
50 clipart designs from *Kooler Design Studio*

Additional Features of the Professional Level

These features are only included in Professional level.

DRAWING
Edit and create specialty stitches; includes a curve drawing tool for creating high-quality curved shapes; includes capability to define stitches that can be easily repeated to fill areas.
ADVANCED EDITING
Free-hand selection tool for making arbitrarily-shaped selections
Limit colors included in a selection
Limit stitch types included in a selection
Replace the color of selected stitches
Replace the type of selected stitches
Fill the empty area of a selection using chosen stitch types
Auto-outline a selected area using backstitches: either between the fabric and the stitches, between stitches of different colors, or around the selection.
Paste into a selection using a previously copied area of the design to produce a patterned effect. Can paste into the used area, the unused area, or the entire area of the selection. Automatically uses partial stitches.
PALETTE
Highlighting feature for locating stitches of the selected color
DESIGN LAYOUT (more info)
Create page layouts using a built-in word processor
Insert one or more chart objects into a layout for representing all or some portion of the design. Selectable formatting for the chart object.
Insert one or more floss tables into a layout. Selectable column contents and formatting. Selectable table formatting including border style, cell color, and text formatting.
Insert graphics objects such as logos or diagrams
Insert pattern information fields
Insert OLE objects from other applications
Insert other user-specified text using paragraph formatting or table formatting
All layout objects and information automatically updated when design changes
Supports multiple document sections with independent section formatting (columns, page size, page orientation, margins)
Supports the creation of custom layout templates which can be re-used for new designs.
Export a layout as an RTF file for importing into other applications
GRAPHICS EXPORTING (more info)
Export design as a graphics file (for the chart) and RTF file (for the pattern information)
Supports 10 graphics file formats including BMP, JPEG, TIFF, and WMF
Export design using OLE

Additional Features of the Machine Embroidery Add-on

These features are only included with the Machine Embroidery Add-on.

Export into any of the common machine formats:

Brother/Baby Lock/Bernina (PES/PEC)
Compucon/Singer PSW (XXX)
Elna XPressive (EMD)
Janome Customizer 10000 (JEF)
Janome New Home (SEW)
Melco (EXP)
Pfaff (PCS)
Poem/Singer EU (CSD)
Tajima (DST)
Viking Husqvarna (HUS)
Viking (VIP)
Viking HuskyGram (old-style CSD) (CSD)

Design conversion using built-in Buzz Tools® software

Hoop size selectable from list or specify a custom size

Automatically splits designs that are larger than the selected hoop size

Alignment stitches available to aid in the stitch-out of multi-hoop designs

Automatically splits designs into multiple files based upon user-selectable stitch and thread-change limits

Detailed exporting results to aid in the stitch-out

Display of jump stitches

Selectable stitch-out thickness for each stitch type and palette color

(Note: Only full, half, quarter, back/straight, and French Knot stitches are supported by this feature)

The Machine Embroidery add-on of Pattern Maker allows you to very easily export your cross stitch designs into one of the common embroidery file formats for stitch-out on a machine. This feature is only available in the Machine Embroidery add-on.

Special Features

As necessary, the program will automatically split the design into multiple machine files based upon:

The limits used by the program in deciding when to split a design are fully selectable by the user. When it is necessary to split the file due to the hoop size being smaller than the design, the program will add alignment stitches along the boundaries between the sections to aid in the re-hooping or repositioning of the fabric. The program adds these alignment stitches in such a way that it is easy to remove them after alignment is done.

Stitch Generation

The thread order for the stitch-out of a design is based upon the order of the colors in the palette. To have a particular color stitch-out earlier, the color can be re-positioned in the palette of the design.

Stitches are generated using three passes thru the palette. In the first pass, all full, half, and quarter stitches are generated. In the second pass, back and straight stitches are generated. In the third pass, French Knots are generated. Note that specialty stitches and petite stitches are not currently supported by this feature.

In generating machine stitches to represent the design, the program attempts to minimize the number of jump stitches required. To aid the user in designing-out jump stitches, the display of jumps stitches (only after exporting) can be enabled.

Stitch-out Information

The program provides a detailed summary of the exporting results. This information includes the resulting design size, a list of all files created, and a thread change list for each file which includes stitch count per color. When stitching-out the design, the user must rely upon this thread list instead of the color descriptions that may be indicated by the machine. This information can be printed or displayed in a window that is updated each time the design is exported.