PCS embroidery file format

What a PCS file stores

PCS is a small, practical format. According to the pyembroidery implementation, the header holds a code for the hoop the design was made for, distinguishing a small hoop from a large one. Then comes the colour table: a count followed by one colour value per thread, so a PCS shows its intended shades rather than palette approximations. The stitch count and the stitches follow.

pyembroidery reads two sibling formats with the same layout, PCD and PCQ (the "Maxi" variant), and tells the three apart by that hoop code.

That structure makes PCS easy to convert. Everything it stores, apart from the hoop code, has a direct place in VP3.

Which machines read PCS

PCS was made for older Pfaff machines. Today it survives mainly as an import format: BERNINA's B 880 and B 790 read PCS after the Embroidery PLUS upgrade, and Brother's free Design Database Transfer software displays PCS files on Windows, although it won't send them to a Brother machine. Commercial programs such as Hatch read and write it as a "Pfaff production file".

Current Pfaff machines are built around VP3, and some of them read nothing else, so a PCS collection is worth converting.

How to open and convert a PCS file

The free embroidery file viewer opens PCS files and shows the real size, the stitch count and the stored colours. The embroidery file converter turns a PCS into VP3 for current Pfaff and Husqvarna Viking machines, or into PES, JEF, EXP, DST, XXX, U01 or PEC for other brands, with the same stitches.

The other older formats of the same family behave differently: HUS opens in free tools too, while VIP needs commercial software.

PCS and Embroidly

Our library doesn't ship PCS files. Every design comes as VP3 for Pfaff and Husqvarna Viking machines, together with PES, JEF, EXP, DST, XXX, U01 and PEC.