How to Convert PES to DST (and Back)
PES is Brother’s format and DST is Tajima’s. You’ll want to convert between them whenever a design was made for one kind of machine and you’re stitching it on the other. The most common cases are a home design going to a commercial shop, or a DST from a digitizer that needs to run on a Brother.
Both formats are lists of stitches, so converting doesn’t change the design itself. The thing that changes is the thread colors.
Convert PES to DST
- Open the PES to DST converter.
- Choose your PES file.
- Leave the width and height empty to keep the original size.
- Click Convert to DST, check the preview, and download the DST.
What carries over: every stitch, in the same order, and every color change.
What doesn’t: the thread colors. DST has no place to store them, so the machine will ask you to assign a thread to each color block when you load the file. Write down the colors from the PES before you convert; opening the PES in the viewer shows them.
Convert DST to PES
- Open the DST to PES converter.
- Choose your DST file.
- Click Convert to PES and download the PES.
The stitches carry over unchanged. The DST had no colors to begin with, so the PES uses gray placeholder threads, one per color block. Swap them for real colors on the machine, or in the design’s color chart if you have one.
Resizing while you convert
You can enter a new width or height before converting. Enter just one and the other follows, so the design keeps its proportions. Entering both can stretch it.
Be careful with big changes. Resizing scales the stitches that are already there; it doesn’t redraw the design. Shrink a design a lot and its stitches crowd together, which makes it stiff and can break thread. Enlarge it a lot and satin columns get long and loose. Small adjustments are fine. The converter warns you when a design comes out at 75% of its original size or less.
Other formats
The embroidery file converter handles every pair between PES, DST, JEF and EXP, and reads VP3 too. If you’re not sure which format your machine wants, PES vs DST vs JEF vs EXP lists them by brand.