§ GLOSSARY · MACHINE FORMAT
MACHINE FORMAT
The file format an embroidery machine reads to know how and where to stitch — DST, PES, JEF, EXP, VP3, XXX, SEW, and others.
Embroidery vocabularyPlain-English definition
WHAT IT MEANS
Embroidery machines do not read vector files directly; they read pre-stitched files in vendor-specific formats. Each format encodes stitch coordinates, commands (trim, color change, jump), and (sometimes) thread color information. The same design has to be exported in the format the destination machine expects, or the operator has to do an in-machine format conversion that frequently loses information.
WHEN IT MATTERS
Sending the wrong format is the most common cause of 'this file will not load' tickets. Knowing your buyer's machine and exporting accordingly avoids the entire problem.
SEE ALSO