Fonts and your thread drawer

Fonts

Broidry includes a library of real embroidery fonts, and every preview a customer sees is drawn from the actual stitch files, not a lookalike computer font. What the customer previews is what your machine stitches.

Fonts that stitch in more than one thread color work in the Mockup Studio too — the preview draws every color, and you can even give each letter its own thread.

On the order form, a font that stitches in more than one color asks the buyer for one thread per color. You can keep some of those colors for yourself: on your Designs page, under each multi-color font, every thread has a checkbox, "Buyer picks this color," on to start. Uncheck the ones you choose yourself, for example the placement and tackdown runs of an appliqué font, and press "Save font menu." The buyer then sees only the threads you left checked, with a line that reads, for example, "You pick one and Sara's Shop chooses the other two," and the order page lists that thread as "shop's choice." At least one thread always stays with the buyer; to choose every color yourself, turn off the thread color question on the product instead.

You can upload the embroidery fonts you own: a ZIP of the per-letter stitch files, or the PES letter files directly. Every uploaded font is checked letter by letter, the same as the built-in library, so a font with a damaged letter is caught before a customer ever previews it.

A font you upload arrives under whatever name was inside the file, and that is often the seller's own file name — something like KR_Hello Satin Cap_0.75in-3.0in — which is not what you want your customers reading on your order form. You can change it. In your font list, press Rename on that font, type what buyers should see, and press Save. Only the name moves: the letters, the font itself, and every product already offering it stay exactly as they are, so renaming can never unpick a font from a listing.

If a font you bought only came as a .bx file — the format that opens inside Embrilliance — you can still get it in. The guide called Use a .bx font in Broidry walks through it: you type the alphabet once in the free Embrilliance Express, save one file, and Broidry builds the font from it.

Where embroidery fonts come from

Embroidery fonts are not the fonts on your computer. A real embroidery font is a set of pre-digitized stitch files, one per letter, made to be sewn — usually sold as digital files with an extension like .pes or .bx — that extension tells your embroidery software or machine how to read the stitches, so check the file type matches what your machine needs before you buy. A computer font stretched into stitches by software is where most bad lettering comes from.

If you are new: you buy embroidery fonts, and they are not expensive. Most run somewhere between ten and forty dollars, you own them forever, and a handful of good ones covers almost every order. Well-known shops embroiderers buy from include Designs by JuJu, Embroidery Legacy, and Herrington Design — search for the style you want plus the words embroidery font.

Before you buy, check two things: that the font comes in sizes near what you stitch (a font digitized at three inches does not shrink to half an inch cleanly), and that the license allows selling finished items, which nearly all of them do.

The thread drawer

The Supplies area holds your thread drawer: the spools you actually own, by brand and number, each marked on hand, running low, or out. Add spools from the built-in brand charts, which are Madeira Polyneon 40, Isacord 40, the two Candle Thread cards, and Floriani Polyester, or type in any brand you use. The guide called Thread charts lists them and covers adding a brand that is not built in.

The drawer feeds everything else. Mockup thread swatches come from it, customer previews use it, and the reorder list shows you exactly which numbers to buy when something runs low.

Show buyers only some of your colors

Your drawer can hold far more colors than a customer needs to choose from. Out of the box, buyers see every spool in it: on the thread color step of your order form, and on the Threads tab of your shop page. You can pick a short list for buyers instead, like one red, one blue, and one purple, and still keep every spool in your drawer for your own work. When the order comes in, you choose the exact brand and number to stitch it in.

1. 1Open Supplies. Under the heading "Your thread drawer" is a card called "Colors buyers see". (The same card is on your Storefront page, on the "What's on the page" tab, when the Thread colors tab is switched on.)
2. 2Press "Pick the colors buyers see". Every spool in your drawer appears with its swatch. Narrow the list with the color buttons, like "Blues" or "Reds & Pinks", or type a color name or thread number in "Find a color".
3. 3Click a spool to add it to the list buyers see, and click it again to take it off. Every click saves. The card counts them for you, for example "Buyers see 8 of your 156 colors."
4. 4Press "Done picking" when the list looks right.
5. 5To limit the colors on just one product, like navy and gold on a team shirt, open that product from your Products page. Under "Let buyers pick the thread color", the "Which thread colors?" list shows your spools. Check the few this product offers, and buyers ordering it see only those. Leave them all unchecked and that product offers your "Colors buyers see" list, or your whole drawer if you never picked one.