Formats, features and real examples.

Open, edit and convert supported formats

Read, edit and export the machine formats real embroidery machines use, with an explicit choice for what resizing changes, and a way to spread a large design across more than one hoop.

• Format support with the version called out. Support varies by format and version. Test your own PES, DST, JEF, VP3 or EXP files in the free tier before depending on a workflow; do not assume every format can be both read and written.
• Resize with a choice, not a guess. Two explicit modes: Keep stitch count scales needle positions as-is, so density loosens or tightens with the new size; Keep stitch spacing re-samples the design so the spacing you sewed at stays the spacing you get, adding or removing stitches to hold it. The app names the exact record counts and stitch-length change before you apply either one.
• Split a design across hoops, with alignment marks generated for you. Auto-split divides the design's actual footprint into a grid sized to your hoop, with a 10 mm overlap; manual split lets you place one straight cut. Either way, every resulting section gets small "+"-shaped registration stitches every 20 mm along the internal seams, so you can line the fabric up by eye under the next hoop.
• Machine profiles that already know your hoop sizes. Six documented machine families — Brother PE800/SE1900-class, Brother PR-class, Baby Lock, Janome 500E-class, Husqvarna Viking and Bernina — each carry their common hoop sizes, typical thread weight and speed class; Satinsmith can suggest one automatically from the file format you opened.

Lettering that actually sews

Professional-feeling lettering tools without needing a licensed font library: built-in stitch fonts, monogram templates, and a way to convert any font already on your Mac into editable satin.

• Two built-in stitch fonts, ready immediately. Satinsmith Sans as satin columns, suited to lettering from about 8 mm cap height and to monograms, plus a double-run cut for smaller text where satin would pull too tight to sew cleanly.
• Convert any installed Mac font into editable satin lettering. The conversion engine walks each glyph's outline, decides letter-by-letter whether a stroke should become a satin column or a small fill, and hands back editable rails you can still adjust afterward — not a locked bitmap trace.
• 55 monogram styles, sized by one number. Five arrangements (Traditional, Block, Stacked, Single initial, Couple) across eleven frame styles, four of them with matching appliqué outlines. Set one "finished height," frame included, and the whole monogram scales to it.
• Small text warns you before you sew it. As you type, live review checks your actual cap height against fabric-specific minimums; if it's too small for clean satin, one click previews every letter as a run-stitch outline instead, so you can compare before committing.

Digitize your own art

Manual satin, fill, run and motif tools with a full property panel, plus auto-digitizing that turns your own vector or raster artwork into objects you can still edit afterward — never a locked black box.

• Real control over satin. Independent start/end extension or trim per rail (−100 to 100 mm), up to eight authored split positions across a column's width for extra penetration seams, and corner styles — exact, rounded or beveled — with an explicit setback distance.
• Fill tools that behave like a vector editor. Union, subtract, intersect and exclude between adjacent fills; positive or negative offsets; contour/echo fill as successive inward rings; and a straight-knife tool you drag across a fill to split it in two, with both halves staying independently editable.
• Vector art imports as real geometry, not a traced picture. SVG import reads the actual path data — not a rendered image — and lets you choose Run, Satin, Fill or Automatic for each shape before anything generates, so what comes back is still made of editable curves.
• Raster art becomes editable fill objects. Bring in a PNG or JPEG, reduce it to as few as 1 or as many as 16 colors (optionally locked to your existing thread palette), clean up stray pixels, and convert the result into tatami or contour fills you can keep adjusting.
• Appliqué with a cutter file to match. Draw or trace a shape and Satinsmith sequences the placement, tackdown and cover stitches in order, then exports an SVG or DXF of just the fabric outline — sized for cutting machines like Cricut, ScanNCut or Silhouette. Always verify the imported size and test-cut first; per-app import presets aren't independently qualified yet.

Restyle designs you already own

Open a purchased stitch file and get back editable objects where the engine can recognize them — with anything it's not confident about left exactly as-is, and a clear compare-and-revert view either way.

• Recovers what it can, honestly. Recognized satin, fill and run shapes convert to fully editable objects; anything ambiguous stays as imported stitches rather than being guessed at and silently swapped in.
• Compare before you commit. Check the recovered version against the original stitch file, object by object, and revert individually if a recovery doesn't look right.
• Provenance follows the object. A recovered shape stays flagged as recovered through every later edit, resize and export, so downstream tools (like cutter export) always know it came from someone else's stitch file, not your own original artwork.

Fabric-aware, machine-aware

Presets for toweling, caps, knits, denim and more adjust density and underlay with plain-English reasoning, and playback checks warn you about real stitch-crowding problems before you sew.

• Fabric presets set real starting points, with the reasoning shown. Switching from "toweling" to "knit" changes density, underlay and pull compensation together, with a plain-language note on why stretch fabric needs different underlay than a stable one.
• Underlay proximity checks catch thread build-up before it happens. Playback and export review flag any two separate objects whose foundation stitches cross or come within 0.2 mm of each other — a common cause of dense, lumpy patches — and clicking a warning jumps straight to the object.
• Sewing-order suggestions you can see before you accept. One command compares your current stitch-out order against a proposed one side by side, showing the color-change count and travel distance for each. Locked, hidden or already-adjacent objects are left exactly where they are.
• A thread shopping list before you buy. The palette panel estimates meters needed per color, with a realistic waste allowance, and copies a plain-text list — color, brand/code, and total — ready to paste into a shop's search box.

Truly Mac

Built as a native Mac app from the ground up, not a ported Windows tool — Shortcuts automation, a searchable local design library, and network machine transfer that isn't locked to USB.

• Shortcuts and Spotlight, not just menus. Three actions — Convert to Machine Format, Resize Design to Fit Hoop, and Add Lettering — run unattended from the Shortcuts app, so a whole folder of designs can be batch-converted or resized without opening a window.
• A local design library that's actually searchable. Watched folders, thumbnails, smart queries and duplicate detection, backed by a local database — with Quick Look previews in Finder and system-wide Spotlight search rounding it out.
• Machine transfer beyond USB. Alongside writing directly to a mounted USB drive with read-back verification, Satinsmith also recognizes network-mounted machine bridges — like the open-source Raspberry Pi "Dropstitch" project — as valid destinations, clearly labeled as network volumes so they're never confused with a physical drive.
• Offline, one-time license. No account and no phone-home: a license key checks locally against a signed public key, so reinstalling or moving to another Mac just means entering the same key again.
• Your artwork stays on your Mac. Designs and artwork are processed locally and never uploaded. The app sends anonymous usage counts you can switch off, and has no crash uploader.