ART embroidery file format

What an ART file holds

An all-in-one design file keeps the design the way the digitizer built it: shapes and lines, the stitch type and settings of each object, lettering and effects. The software calculates the stitches from those objects whenever it exports a machine file. That makes an ART file the right thing to archive and edit, and the wrong thing to copy to a machine.

ART files are tied to software versions. Wilcom's format list, for example, names "ART?0" BERNINA Embroidery Software files, artista V4.0 design files and ART42 files from Explorations, all as read-only. A file from a newer BERNINA release may not open in older software, so share ART files only with people on the same or a newer version.

Getting a machine file from an ART

1. BERNINA Embroidery Software: open the ART and export EXP for a BERNINA machine, or another format for other brands. BERNINA's blog reminds owners to copy the EXP together with its INF (colours) and BMP (picture).
2. Other software: Hatch and Wilcom EmbroideryStudio read many ART versions and can save any common machine format from them. Embrilliance Essentials can read ART files too.
3. No software: ask the sender for EXP, DST or PES. Designers who work in BERNINA software can export those in seconds.

No tool we checked writes ART, and free converters, ours included, can't read it, because the open-source library they are built on has no reader for it. That is why there is no "ART to EXP" converter on our site; the format page is the honest answer to that search.

ART and BERNINA machines

The machine side is simple: BERNINA embroidery machines read EXP, and the B 880 and B 790 add DST, PES, JEF, PCS, SEW and XXX with the Embroidery PLUS upgrade. None of them sews an ART. The EXP format page explains the three-file set that BERNINA machines expect, and the file formats guide compares the brands.

ART and Embroidly

We digitize with our own software, so our library has no ART files, and our viewer and converter can't open them. BERNINA owners download the EXP file of any design, available in all three native sizes.