Machine Embroidery Fonts and Designs

How to successfully unzip your embroidery files

Windows Vista? Click here

This tutorial will walk you through how to successfully unzip your embroidery files using the free / evaluation version of Winzip: www.winzip.com (Current Version Varies) OR OldVersion.com (Recommended Version 7 or 8.0)

 

Some versions of the Microsoft Windows Operating System will have the capability to unzip files natively without any additional software. Usually, Windows Vista and higher have this ability. This is not covered in this tutorial but should be a simple matter of double left clicking on the zip file and saving the files to a different location. If you believe your OS supports this natively, please consult your help documentation.

Things to note: The majority of our alphabets, fonts and monograms come in different sizes. As a measure to help keep the files organized in a straight forward method, each size is zipped so the alphabet is in one file. Then all the different sizes are zipped together into a single file. This will allow you to typically have one single download to obtain all files instead of having to download potentially hundreds of embroidery designs one at a time.

As an example, we will be working with the Linda Embroidery Font. The main download will be a single file in a .zip file extension. The .zip denotes it is a zipped (compressed) file. Since the Linda Embroidery Font comes in 3 different sizes (1, 2 and 3 inch) there will be 3 files inside of the main file named to denote the embroidery font, font size and font format: 8cp_linda_1_jef.zip, 8cp_linda_2_jef.zip and 8cp_linda_3_jef.zip.

These separate files must be unzipped / decompressed before you can use them in your embroidery software or machine.

 

Although our files are zipped twice, once in the individual size and then again into the main file, it helps keep the files organized and reduces the number of files you have to download.

 

1.       Double left click on the zip file you wish to open

 

2.       If a dialog box asks you to “Buy Now” or “Use Evaluation Version”. Click on ““Use Evaluation Version”.

 

 

 

3.       This will open the zip file to show you the contents inside. Note: You have not unzipped the file contents at this point. You have just opened the file to see what is inside.

 

 

 

4.       If the file contains additional zipped files, double left click on the file you wish to open. If not, please continue to step 7.

 

5.       If a dialog box asks you to purchase or "use evaluation version". Click on “use evaluation version”.

 

6.       This will again open the file to show you the contents.

 

7.       You should now be looking at the embroidery files in the appropriate file format: DST, HUS, JEF, PEC, PES, XXX or VIP.

 

 

8.       Click on the Extract button at the toolbar up on the top row.

 

 

 

9.       This will open a dialog window asking to select a location in which to extract / unzip the files to.

 

 

 

10.   Browse to a place you wish to save the files on your hard drive by using the buttons on the left side to find a location where you normally save your embroidery files.

 

11.   Once you have the location you wish to save your files click on the “Extract” button. The extract button can be located in several places but, in this example is on the bottom portion of the window.

 

 

12.   Your files should now have been successfully unzipped and saved to your hard drive in the folder you selected during the extracting process.

 

13.   You will need to repeat this until you have successfully unzipped all of the different font sizes contained in your purchased alphabet. NOTE: If you intended to extract the files into the same folder location, you should create a separate folder for each size to be saved into during the extracting process as the embroidery designs for the same font but in different sizes are named exactly the same. So extracting the 1 inch size of an embroidery font into the same folder as the 2 inch size of the same format will OVERWRITE the existing files.

 

To create a new folder click on the “New Folder” button in the window dialog. Give it an appropriate name: Linda Embroidery Font 2 inch