Free tool
Convert DST to PES
Turn a Tajima DST into a PES for a Brother or Baby Lock machine. Every stitch, jump and colour stop comes across unchanged, and the PES gives your machine a colour list it can work with and a thumbnail for the screen.
- Free, no account
- About 40 formats in, 8 out
- Files never stored
Your file is read in memory and discarded right away. We never store it.
What carries over
The stitches, their order and the size stay exactly as they are. DST has no real trim command and writes trims as short bursts of jumps; the converter reads three jumps in a row as a trim and writes a proper trim command into the PES, which Brother machines cut on. Colour stops become colour changes.
What doesn’t
Nothing the DST had, but a DST never had colours, and a converter can’t invent the original ones. Your PES gets placeholder colours, one per colour block, and your machine will show those. Set the real colours from the design’s colour sheet, on the machine’s screen or in your embroidery software, or simply thread the right colour each time the machine stops.
Which machines read PES
PES is the native format of every Brother home embroidery machine and of Baby Lock, which shares Brother’s file family; Brother’s PE-Design and most third-party programs open it too. Current Brother machines also read DST, but on older models a DST shows only its file name, while a PES shows a thumbnail and your colour list.
Size, hoops and stitch length
The size doesn’t change, so check it against your hoop before you copy the file. Designs digitized for commercial machines are often larger than the common home hoops of 100 × 100 mm (4×4″) or 130 × 180 mm (5×7″), and a Brother machine won’t open a design that’s bigger than its largest hoop. The viewer shows the exact size and the smallest hoop the file fits.
If the PES file doesn’t sew right
- Strange colours on the screen: they’re placeholders, because DST had no colours to convert. Change them on the machine or follow the colour sheet.
- “Pattern too large” or similar: the design is bigger than your hoop. You need a smaller version of the design; resizing a stitch file by a lot sews badly.
- Long jump threads where trims should be: the DST used a jump count other than three for its trims, so some stayed jumps. Trim those threads by hand, or ask for the file in its original format.
DST to PES: questions
Will the PES show the right colours?
Only once you set them. DST stores no colours, so the converter assigns placeholders. Your machine still stops at every colour change; pick the threads from the colour sheet.
Can my Brother machine read DST directly?
Most current Brother models list DST, so you may not need to convert at all. PES is still nicer to work with: you get a thumbnail and an editable colour list.