Stitch Era embroidery software

Draft

<pageby nominor="false" comments="false"/>

Introduction

• Stitch Era Universal by Sierra is an advanced free embroidery design software that you can get under certain conditions:
• You only get it from an authorized place
• You need to register a key (and renew it periodically)
• The application must be conntect to the Internet permanently and there are advertizements
• The free version limist stitch count to 40'000 stitches.

This page will never become a real stitch era manual, but we will use it to write down a few tricks and tips... - Daniel K. Schneider 16:49, 16 May 2011 (CEST).

Download and installation

Stitch Era Universal is distributed by Authorized Distributors (either via CD or online) unless you are lucky to live in a country without. Installation and use requires a permanent Internet connection. Software contains advertising. Download can take a long time and you need to find a download site for your country (e.g. for France use Annika's site). You first have to install a downloader, then a download the > 400 MB installation files with the downloader program.

After going through the complicated finding-a-place-to-download, the double download and authentication, we found that this program runs fine on Win 7 64 bit.

The user interface

When start up an application that does have a software key, you should see something like this:

Stitch Era startup screen

• Before you click on Create New, download the manual and read some of it (first item under Basic Learning Resources in this startup screen).
• For a new design, select quick start using a simple wizard. You then can specify textile and hoop size (ordered by machines).

The interface is fairly complex and we really suggest reading at least parts of the manual and/or looking at some training videos.

• You have links to both in the start-up screen, else see below.

Main divisions of the stitch Era workspace

1. File Menu button and quick access toolbar
2. Ribbon bar (main tools). These can change contextually.
3. Create and edit tools / color palette
4. Display and reference controls

Links

Official

• Stitch Era Universal Website #1
• stitchera website #2

Official documentation and forums

• Stitch era distributes a nice 250 page printable PDF manual (see the start page). Last time checked it was here.
• The Stitch era community formus