Letting buyers pick from your design library

The Designs page is your library of designs: stitch files, and the artwork for anything you print, press, or engrave. Each design holds its file, a photo or a preview of how it stitches, its true size, and your notes about which thread colors you used last time. That alone makes a reorder six months later a quick lookup instead of a hunt through folders.

Each design says how it is made. Open a design and, at the top of Details, "How this design is made" is Embroidered, Printed (DTF or DTG), Sublimated, Vinyl (HTV or decals), Screen printed, Rhinestone or spangle, Engraved, Sewn, or Other custom work. Every design you already had is Embroidered, so nothing changes until you change it. A design that is not embroidered has no stitch count, no thread list, and no appliqué setting, because none of those apply; its files card is called Print files, or Cut and engrave files for an engraved design, and takes your PNG, PDF, SVG, or cut file. New designs ask the kind first on the Add design form.

When your library holds more than one kind, a Made by row of buttons shows above your designs: Every kind, Embroidered, Printed, and so on, each with its count. Press one to see only that kind, and the search box finds a kind by its word too, so typing printed lists every printed design. Each design card then carries its kind in a small gray chip.

If you added printed designs before this existed, the Designs page offers to sort them for you: a line at the top counts the designs that have no stitch file and no stitch count, and one press marks them all Printed. Press "They are embroidered" instead to leave them, and change any single design on its own page.

If a design is cut from fabric and sewn on, open it and check "This design is appliqué". A buyer who picks it is charged the appliqué fee from your rate card, the same as appliqué lettering.

The library also does a second job that is easy to miss. Designs from it show up in the "Design it" step of your order form, so a buyer picks a design they like, picks a product, and orders the combination — without you drawing up a new product for every possible pairing.

If a design is appliqué — cut from fabric rather than filled with thread — say so on the design itself. Open the design and check "This design is appliqué" under "How this design is made." From then on your appliqué fee is added to every order that uses that design, the same way it is added when a buyer picks appliqué lettering. Leave it unchecked and the design is priced as plain embroidery, which is what it was before you marked it.

Check your appliqué fee is a real number on your Pricing & settings page before you rely on this. A fee sitting at $0 charges nothing no matter how the design is marked.

Where the stitch file goes

Your designs live on the Designs page, not on Supplies. Supplies holds your blanks, thread, and stock. The Designs page holds every stitch file.

To bring files in, use the "⬆ Import machine files" button at the top of the Designs page. Drag a ZIP or the stitch files themselves straight onto that button, or click it and drop them in the panel that opens. Broidry reads each file, groups the formats of one design together, and shows you the names to check. Click the Save button at the bottom of that panel and they are in your library.

To add a file to a design that is already in the library, open the design. On its page there is a card called "Machine files". Drag the stitch file onto that card, or click "＋ Upload files" and pick it. Broidry reads the real stitched size and stitch count out of the file and fills them in for you.

The photo spots only take pictures. If you drop a stitch file on one, Broidry tells you so and points you to Machine files. Broidry stores the file in the format your machine already reads and hands that same file back when you download it.

Find the design a customer's photo came from

Most "can you make me this?" photos are a digitized design someone already sells. Open Find design, drop the customer's photo in, and press "Search Google Lens with this photo →" to look for the listing it came from, or type a few words and press "Search Etsy". Finding the listing turns a guess into an exact quote: the listing states the real stitch count and the file price, so the price comes off your own rate card.

Deleting designs, one at a time or many at once

If you uploaded the wrong files, or just want to clear some out and start fresh, you can delete as many designs as you like in one go. On the Designs page, click "Select" at the top of your designs, then click each design you want gone and a check mark appears on it. "Select all shown" picks every design on the screen, and if you type in the search box or click a tag first, it picks only the ones showing. When you have them all, click "Delete selected".

To delete a single design, open it and click "Delete design" at the bottom of its page.

Either way, Broidry asks you to confirm first. If a design you picked is on an order you haven't finished, or it is the file one of your products sells as a download, the message names it, because its stitch file goes with it. Orders you already finished keep their history. A deleted design cannot be brought back, so the files go for good, and you can import them again any time with "⬆ Import machine files".

Why a design is not showing up for buyers

This is the most common question about the library, and the answer is always one of two things. A design is only offered to buyers when both are true.

First, it needs something to show. That means either a photo you uploaded of the design stitched out, or a rendered preview of the stitch file. A buyer will not order a design they cannot see.

Second, its true stitched size has to be filled in — the real width and height it sews at. Without the size, Broidry cannot tell whether the design physically fits where the buyer wants to put it, so the design is not offered until the size is filled in. That check is what prevents someone ordering a five-inch design for a spot that holds three.

You almost never have to measure that yourself. Upload the design's stitch file and Broidry reads the real size and stitch count straight out of it and fills both in. That works for Brother (.pes), Tajima (.dst), Melco and Bernina (.exp), Janome (.jef), and Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff (.vp3 and .hus) — so whatever machine you run, the file you already send to it is the file that answers this. If you have typed a size in yourself, uploading a file never overwrites it; it only fills in what is blank.

The thread colors on a design

A design's page lists the colors from its machine file, one row per color. "Browse a standard thread chart" picks a color from one of the built-in charts, and "+ Add a thread you have" picks a spool from your own drawer. "Reset to file colors" puts back the colors stored in the file itself.

Selling one design in more than one size

A patch is its design, so your customer picks the design and the size in one breath. Open the design from your Designs page and find the card called "On your order form". Below its list of products, in bold, is "Sizes this design comes in", with a "+ Add a size" button under it. It is always there, on every design, even one that still says "Buyers can't see this design yet". Click "+ Add a size" for each size you have digitized. Give each one a name your customer will understand, like 2 inch or 3 inch, the inches it really sews at, its stitch count, what it adds to the price, and the machine file you run for that size.

If you have already uploaded a stitch file for each size, do not type any of that. Broidry reads the real size and the stitch count out of every machine file you give it, so once the design's files hold a size that is not in the list yet, a button called "Read the sizes from my stitch files" shows right under "Sizes this design comes in". Press it, the rows fill themselves in, and all you type is the prices. Two files of one size, a .pes for one machine and a .dst for another, arrive as one size and not two. Pressing it again after you add another file keeps every price and every name you typed.

The first size in the list is normally the one your product price already covers, so leave its price at 0 and give each bigger size what it adds. A 3 inch patch at +$2 on a $8 product is $10.

Your customer sees the sizes as buttons under the design they picked, each showing its real inches and what it adds. When the order comes in, the order page names the size they chose, its inches, its stitch count, and the file to stitch, so you are never guessing which of your three files this one is.

Leave the size list empty and nothing changes: the design is sold at the one size on the design itself, and your customer is never asked.

Which products a design can go on

Each design carries a list of the products it may be ordered on, which you set on the design itself. Everything except hats and beanies is allowed to start with, because most library designs are too large or sit wrong on a hat front or a beanie cuff. If a design does work on a hat or a beanie, check it yourself. For a design that only goes on one or two products, press "Turn all off" above the checkboxes, check those products, and save the design the way you save any other change to it. "Turn all on" checks every product, hats and beanies included. A product's own order form shows only the designs allowed on its kind of item; the rest are left off, not grayed out. When some of your designs are not allowed on it, the product's page says how many are, under "Buyers pick a design from your library", with a button that turns the rest on for that kind of item in one press. A design too big for the spot still stays off it.

That list is kinds of item, like a hat, a tee, a tote or a patch type you made, not your single products. So a design you allow on totes shows on every tote product you sell, wherever a buyer orders it: the product's own page, a drop, a business page and a group order.

To offer a design only on one drop, one business page or one group order, open that page's Edit details and check the design under Designs on this page. The page then offers only the designs you checked, and a design you left off is never sent to a buyer's screen there. To keep a design off your shop page, your product pages and your order link altogether, open the design and check "Only on the pages where I pick it" under On your order form. The design then shows only on a page where you checked it. That is the setting for a logo you digitized for one school or one company: check it on their business page, and nobody else sees it. Your library marks such a design Only where you pick it.

Product types you made yourself, like a patch or a dog bandana, are in that list too, and they start checked. When you add a new product type, every design in your library is allowed on it right away, so a new patch type can sell the designs you already have. The one exception is a type you based on a hat or a beanie, which starts unchecked like those do.

To sell your designs as their own product — patches are the usual case — make the product type first (Products page, click "Your own product types", then "Add a product type"), then add a product of that type. Open it, and under "More options", in "Lettering and design", set "Who picks the design?" to "Your customer picks from your design library". The order form for that product then shows every design in your library that has a picture and a stitched size, and your customer picks one.

When you have more than eight designs, the order form puts a search box above them, and your tags show up as buttons your customer can press to narrow the list, so a library of hundreds is never a wall of tiles. The tags are the same words you type on each design under Tags, so "dog", "school", or "floral" on your designs become the buttons your customer sees. The list shows 24 at a time with a "Show more" button under it.

A design that comes in more than one size asks your customer which size they want, right under the design they just picked, with the price of each size next to it. Add a choice list to the product for anything else you need to know, like which backing they want, and put a price on the answers that cost more.

A design that stitches in more than one thread, like a script in one color with its shadow in another, can ask your customer for a color per thread. Open the design and check "Buyer picks a color for each thread in this design" under "Thread colors on orders". The order form then shows "Thread 1", "Thread 2", and so on, each with the color it is shown in and your thread drawer to pick from, and every pick is written on the order under "Thread colors they picked". Leave it unchecked and the design orders exactly as shown.

On top of your list, Broidry runs its own size check. When a buyer picks a design, any garment whose stitchable area cannot hold that design at its true size is switched off in front of them. So a design that is genuinely too big for a spot can never be ordered onto it, even if you left the product checked.