SEW embroidery file format

What a SEW file stores

A SEW file begins with its colour list: a count, then one entry per colour that points to a thread in a fixed Janome palette. The stitches follow as short moves with codes for jumps and colour changes. In pyembroidery's implementation the SEW palette has 78 colours, and only about half of them are identical to the 78 of the JEF palette, so the same design can show slightly different Janome threads in the two formats.

What SEW lacks compared with JEF is the extra design information, such as the hoop code that tells software which Janome hoop the design was laid out for.

Which machines read SEW

SEW was the format of older Janome, Elna and Kenmore embroidery machines; Wilcom and Hatch both list it as a "Janome / Elna / Kenmore" format. Today it is mainly an import format. BERNINA's B 880 and B 790 read SEW after the Embroidery PLUS upgrade, and Brother's free Design Database Transfer displays SEW files on Windows without sending them. Current Janome and Elna machines are made for JEF.

How to open and convert a SEW file

The free embroidery file viewer opens SEW files and shows the Janome colours, the real size and the stitch count. The embroidery file converter turns a SEW into JEF for current Janome and Elna machines, moving each colour to its nearest JEF palette thread, or into PES, DST, EXP, VP3, XXX, U01 or PEC for other brands. The stitches never change.

For Janome machines that read DST as well, the JEF format page explains why JEF is still the better choice: it keeps the colours, and not every Janome reads DST.

SEW and Embroidly

Our library doesn't ship SEW files. Every design comes as JEF for Janome and Elna machines, together with PES, DST, EXP, VP3, XXX, U01 and PEC.