Tips & Techniques

Printing out a design in 3D Customizing to show thread color numbers and NAMES

Many people noticed their design printouts showed the color #’s but not the names. I had many designs saved as vp3 and some of them printed with color #’s and names and some only showed the color #s. We finally figured out what was wrong.

When I purchased sets of designs, I always used “File, Convert thread range”in 3D Organizer to have the all of the designs converted to my thread range at once. The Thread Conversion will ONLY save in VP3 format and it automatically adds the names of those colors of threads too.

Now, I realize that sometimes I used the "convert icon" on the toolbar of 3D Organizer to unzip designs and convert them to vp3. Even though you convert to VP3 or VIP or HUS, it does NOT add the color names as well as the thread color #’s.

Once you've done the “convert thread range”in 3D Organizer and while the original designs are still highlighted, touch the “delete”key and all the original designs will disappear.

Then click on “view, refresh”and only the new converted ones will appear.

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But, what if you have thousands of designs saved in VIP and HUS and maybe even vp3 and you don’t want to go through all the trouble of opening 3D Organizer and using the “Convert thread range”to make sure that all the designs will have the color names and numbers.

Let's say you have the 3D Embroidery screen open and you choose a design to work with. You aren't sure if that design was converted properly. You definitely want the color names to show on your print out.

Click on "file, print preview" and look at that preview printout and see if the names are showing up to the right of the colors. If they aren't there, you don't necessarily have to open up 3D Organizer to convert the thread range.

Just click on the first color on the control panel and then click OK. Then the next and click OK and do this until all colors have been clicked and OK’d.

Now, look again at "file, print preview" and all of those colors now have the names too. You can print it out.

Then when you try to clear the screen or close out, a pop up will appear asking you if you want to save the changes. Say YES and make sure you save in VP3 format.

The problem with fixing all of the designs I own is that I have my laptop that I use for classes and a desktop in my sewing room and those would have to be changed too.

I think it would be better to do it on one computer and make a backup of the organized designs on CDs. Then I could delete the "my designs" folder on the other computers and copy the new "my designs" folder from the CDs.

So, I think I will just stick with only doing the designs as I use them. No sense wasting all that time converting the thousands of HUS and VIP or other formats if I may never use them.