Font packs (one file per letter)
Import a font sold as one stitch file per letter: how case, baselines and spacing are read, checking each size, and saving it as a font family.
Overview
Some fonts are sold as one stitch file per letter: a folder or .zip with a file for every letter (A.dst, a_lower.pes, …), often in several sizes (1 inch, 2 inch). ThreadReady can import these as a font. Each size becomes a font file in one family, like the sizes of a BX font.
Only owners and admins can import fonts.
Importing a font pack
- Go to Designs → Fonts and click Import a font pack.
- Choose the pack's .zip, or the unzipped folder. The letters are read in your browser; nothing is uploaded until you save. A pack can be up to 100 MB (real ones are 2–15 MB). Files left out (password-protected inside the zip, or too large to be a letter) are listed under Check these; a pack with no letter files at all is refused.
- Check What was read:
- Family name — taken from the pack's name; change it if you like.
- Upper and lower case — ThreadReady works out which letters are capitals from their stitches (capitals are taller than the same lower-case letter) and says why. If it got it wrong, pick All capitals, All lower case or As the file names say.
- Spacing — letter, word and line spacing are estimated from the letters. Move a slider to change one, then Update the preview. For a script font, tick start each letter where the one before ends so the joins meet.
- Check the Sizes: each size shows how its label was read (for example "15inch" read as 1.5 inch), the height measured from the letters, how many letters it has and which are missing. The samples are sewn in each size, with the baseline the letters sit on drawn as a dashed red line.
- If a letter sits too high or too low, open Letters, enter a Nudge in millimetres (below the baseline; negative raises it) and Update the preview.
- Click Add … sizes as Draft. Your current choices are applied (you needn't update the preview first), and each size is added to the family as a draft font file, up to 9 MB a size; publish them from the font library when they look right (see Fonts).
When the pack also has a BX font
Many packs include an Embrilliance .bx of the same font. A BX re-sews cleanly at any height; letter files can only be scaled about 10% up or down. ThreadReady says so and offers Upload the BX instead. Import the letter files only if you want those exact stitches.
How pack fonts sew
- They resize about 10% either way. The stitches are the digitizer's, so a size is never re-sewn: it is scaled, from 90% to its own size. Upload or keep several sizes for a wider range; the family picks the size, as for BX fonts.
- They are kept as .oef files. The imported letters are stored in the Open Embroidery Format, so the font page has no BX to download, only the
.oef. - The pack's licence still applies. Converting the letters to
.oefdoesn't change who owns the font or what its licence allows; each.oefsays so, and the import page says so before you save. Read any licence file the pack includes. - What the import couldn't read is listed under Check these: files that disagreed in shape between formats, colours that had to be made up (DST and EXP files carry none), and licence files in the pack (read them: the import doesn't).