PES embroidery file format

What is inside a PES file

A PES file has two layers. The outer layer, the PES header, comes from Brother's PE-Design software and describes the design: its name, the hoop it was laid out for and, from version 5 on, a thread table with real colour values, thread names and brands. The inner layer is a PEC block, Brother's older machine format, which carries the stitches themselves, a colour number for each thread from Brother's fixed 64-colour palette, and the preview pictures: one 48 × 38 pixel image of the whole design and one per colour.

That layering explains a few things embroiderers notice:

• Two sets of colours. Software that reads the thread table shows the designer's exact shades; the machine shows the nearest colour of the Brother palette. The stitches are the same.
• New files on old machines. The machine reads the PEC block, which hasn't changed in years, so a PES saved by current software usually opens on an older model, as long as the design fits that model's hoop and limits.
• Version numbers. The first bytes of the file name the version (#PES0001, #PES0060 and so on). The version matters to editing software far more than to the machine.

Which machines read PES

Every Brother home and PR multi-needle model checked for our file formats guide reads PES, together with PHC and DST; newer models add PHX and PEN, the formats Brother machines save your own creations in. Baby Lock machines share the platform and the files: PES, PHC and DST, plus PEC on the Radiance and PHX on the Venture 2 and Array.

Outside those two brands PES is a popular second format. bernette's b70 DECO and b79 open it, BERNINA's B 880 and B 790 read it after the Embroidery PLUS upgrade, and the newest Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff flagships list it among their 15 formats. On those machines their own format, EXP or VP3, keeps more of the design's information.

Limits to check before you stitch

PES has no size limit of its own, but your machine does. Brother's PE800 manual caps a combined design at 200,000 stitches or 125 colour changes, and every machine refuses a design that is larger than the embroidery field of the hoop you selected. The hoop sizes guide lists the fields of popular models. Our S and M sizes fit a 4x4 hoop (100 × 100 mm) and L fits a 5x7 hoop (130 × 180 mm).

How to open a PES file

Windows and macOS have no built-in program for PES. The quickest check is the free embroidery file viewer: it shows the preview, the real size in millimetres and inches, the stitch count and the colours, in any browser. On Windows, Brother's free Design Database Transfer displays PES files too, and Brother's Artspira app imports them on iOS and Android. How to open a PES file walks through every option.

Converting to and from PES

A converter rewrites the same stitches in another format, so the shape of the design never changes. What can change is the colour information:

• PES to DST drops the colours, because DST has nowhere to store them. Keep the thread chart next to the file.
• DST to PES can't bring back colours that were never there: the converter assigns palette colours and the thread chart tells you which thread to load.
• PES to JEF and JEF to PES map one brand palette onto the other, so a shade can move to its nearest neighbour.
• PES to VP3 keeps colour values, because VP3 stores them too.

Converting never changes stitch density. If a design is too big for your hoop, download a smaller native size instead of scaling the file.

PES files from Embroidly

Every design in the library comes as a PES file in each of its three sizes. We write PES version 6, so the file carries both the Brother palette numbers that the machine uses and a thread table with the colour values and names from our thread chart. After writing, every file is read back and compared with the digitized design: stitch count, colour changes and the position of every needle drop.