Embroidery Reader displays PES embroidery files using 100% open source C# code.

Current version: 1.3.1 (1/21/09)
Changes from 1.3.0-1.3.1:

• Fixed color number 15 - was lilac, it's now brown/brass. Thanks to Ryan Lovett and Robert Heel for reporting this one.

Changes from 1.2.2-1.3.0:

• Changed code to use PEC section instead of PES data. It seems to be able to read all file types now. A big thanks goes to Michel Veerman for his help on this one.
• Added an option in the settings to 'filter' stitches based on length. Some designs look much better with it, others end up missing parts.
• Probably lots of small fixes, but I can't think of them right now.

Changes from 1.2.1-1.2.2:

• This version fixes a crash caused by saving empty values in the settings file. It is otherwise the same as the previous version. (1.2.1)

Changes from older versions:

• Basic support for printing designs. Thanks to majorsnazz for the suggestion.
• Ability to copy design images to the clipboard, so you can paste the image into any image editor.
• A number of cosmetic bugfixes.
• A simple icon. (I got tired of the default one)

The installer version is the easiest way to get it working, but it's only for Windows right now. The installer can setup file associations so you can double click on PES files to open them. It also includes an uninstaller.

The zip version includes just the program files, and should work with any system that has an appropriate version of .Net or Mono installed.

Embroidery Reader downloads:

• Installer version (1271 downloads)
• Zip version (358 downloads)
• C# source code zip (187 downloads) (if you don't know what C# is, you don't want this)

Download counts next to links are for this verison. There have been 5574 total downloads since November 12th, 2007.

Notes:

• You can check for updates within the program by clicking on Help, then Check for update from the menu.
• If there's a feature you'd like added, please to use the contact form to tell me about it.
• Under Windows, Embroidery Reader requires the .NET Framework 2.0 to be installed in order to run.
• Under Linux and Mac, Embroidery Reader runs on Mono. (Most Linux distributions have Mono packages available in their repositories)
  • It still needs a few tweaks to make all the graphical elements look right when running on Mono.
  • I was able to run it on Xubuntu 8.04 by installing mono-runtime, libmono-microsoft8.0-cil and libmono-winforms2.0-cil. It can be run from a terminal by typing 'mono embroideryReader.exe', or 'mono embroideryReader.exe filename.pes' to open a PES file.
  • It will build on Ubuntu (and Mac, I assume) using Monodevelop. Thanks to Ryan Lovett for testing Embroidery Reader on Mac and also testing it with Monodevelop.

PES files are used to store designs for some embroidery machines. If you open one in a text editor like notepad, the first 4 characters will be #PES. The next 4 characters tell what version the file is.
As of version 1.3.0, the PES number doesn't really matter. Embroidery Reader skips over all the PES classes and reads the PEC section at the end of the file.
Here's some info on the PES format I've compiled:
(Documentaion moved to docsindex.html)

My future goals for this project include:

• Showing thumbnails for designs in Windows Explorer
• Running on Linux (and Mac if possible) just as well as it runs on Windows