Pre-Design is a vector drawing program where you create your own artwork, which can be used in practically all brands of embroidery digitizing programs. In Pre-Design you can scan, open or paste a background image of any quality and trace it with the easy drawing tools. Just click from point to point to draw the object and double-click to finish. So, even if you don't have a steady hand, the line will still be a straight line, or a perfect curve. Edit the lines by selecting and moving points. Then save, and choose one of the export functions to turn the drawing into a solid color bitmap, a line drawing with lines of even width, or a vector line drawing in *.emf-format or even a *.pem-file (for use in PE-Design/Palette Design Center Stage 3). Which export function you choose: your embroidery digitizing program will love the quality!

Simply said because you don't want to spend hours on cleaning bitmaps! When you start creating your own embroidery designs you will discover that not every type of image will work in your digitizing program and you probably have spent hours already cleaning up bitmaps before you can start with the actual embroidery digitizing work! Well, that is where Pre-Design comes in: you can open a background image of any quality (good, bad, ugly), then use the Curve tool to draw the lines you want in your embroidery. Edit the drawing and export. The result: nice smooth clean lines of even width, with solid colors, which will work like a charm in your embroidery digitizing program! So cleaning up bitmaps is history!

You will be surprised how easy it is to draw with the few drawing tools in Pre-Design! It really is a matter of clicking from point to point to draw the object and double-click to finish. Edit the lines by selecting and moving points. Then save, and export to turn the drawing into a perfect quality bitmap (solid colors, smooth line art, vector emf-file, PEM-file or jpeg file).

The program is easy to use. It doesn't have all the brush-strokes, blur, drop shadow, anti-alias and other fancy effects that only complicate a program and make it so hard to use for us embroiderers, who in fact only need to draw clean lines, with even thickness everywhere.

The program includes 145 pattern samples and on the CD-rom you will find 14 Tutorial Video's and a printable User Guide, all "packed" in an attractive introduction program with easy navigation buttons to install the program, watch the tutorial movies or print the user guide.

Important: with the purchase of Pre-Design you purchase a single user license. You are allowed to install the program on two different computers, provided both computers are yours! You are not allowed to copy, share, forward, or lend the program to anyone else. You are not allowed to re-sell Pre-Design once it is registered. So, don't sell (or buy for that matter!!) a "used" registered Pre-Design program on an auction page or anywhere else. The new "owner" will not be able to register it, will not receive an unlock code, will not receive support, or benefit from any upgrade offers!

5 easy drawing tools (straight line, rectangle, oval, arc and curve). Pre-Design is a vector drawing program: Draw by just clicking from point to point and double-click to finish a line.

Get perfect smooth clean thin lines, the best start for your embroidery program. Download this example (right-click and choose "Save Target as" to download the fruitwreath.bmp. Download the bmp-format, not this small web-image gif-format) and try it in your embroidery program:

Export directly to PEM-format, which can be opened in Stage 3 of Design Center V4, 5 and 6.

Export directly to vector EMF-format

Or Export to a solid color bitmap, perfect for autodigitizing programs.

On the CD: 14 tutorial videos and a printable User Guide.

Plus 145 pattern samples installed with the program!

Scan or open an existing background image (bmp, jpeg or wmf-format) and use the drawing tools to trace the image. Then save the pattern (to resume your work, or edit it later) and export into various formats: solid color *.bmp, black/white hairline *.bmp, color *.jpeg, *.pem-format (for PE-Design/Palette Design Center V4 and 5) and *.emf format - a vector format that can be imported into many professional embroidery digitizing programs, such as Wilcom, iPunch, Melco, but also Embird.

Easy editing Edit your drawing by moving points, inserting new points or delete points.

Flip, mirror, rotate, resize, copy, paste selected objects.

Change line width From hairline thin lines to thick lines: 7 different line widths for the smooth lines. From hairline thin, one pixel wide lines (perfect for Design Center) to thicker lines in any color you want, perfect for Click n Stitch, Origins, Artista and other embroidery programs.

Change lines into any color you like. By changing the lines into the color of the fill, the line "disappears". Great for autodigitizing programs like Click n Stitch^tm where color graphics often look better if they aren't outlined.

Easy coloring Color the drawing by clicking in the color palette and then click inside the region you want to color. Double-click inside a colored region and create any color you want. Please note: In some drawings, the vector layers may be too complex to fill with color; in that case use the next feature:

Copy your drawing to clipboard You can copy the drawing to clipboard and paste it into your embroidery digitizing program, or, just in case the vector layers cannot be filled with color, paste it into MSPaint and use Paint's fill bucket to color the drawing. Then save this bitmap and open in your embroidery program.

Import WMF (vector characteristics are kept, so the WMF is turned into editable line-art in seconds). Extra possibility to open WMF as background image (in case the imported WMF has too many points and editing would take too much time, this is a time saver to have it as a background and trace it by hand). There are CD-roms for sale with thousands of WMF-graphics on it. With this new feature you don't need another program to convert the WMF. Please note that this only works with "true" vector WMF-files and not for bitmaps converted into WMF-format, because converted bitmaps don't contain the vector information!

Convert True Type Fonts into editable and resizable line-art in just seconds!! You won't believe this until you actually work with Pre-Design!! You can insert text using the True Type Fonts installed on your computer. A text or a dingbat-graphic is converted into line-art in just seconds!! You can resize and edit this text or the graphic by moving and adding points if you like, or just export it to that perfect quality hairline-thin bitmap that is the "pre" of Pre-Design! And then open it in your embroidery software and digitize it.

Insert text on a selected path - circle, rectangle, any shape: draw the shape, select it and choose Edit - Insert Text on Path. The text (True Type Fonts) will run along the selected line. Grrrrreat for Logo's, just too much fun if you use this with dingbats. Warning: addictive, no time left for anything else than playing with this feature! Perfect for autodigitizing programs that don't have their own text feature.

Magic Circle^tm: Now, for those of you that really can't draw, there's the Magic Circle. Draw a little flower, or leaf (or any shape you like), select it, click the Magic Circle button and decide how many copies you want and adjust the spacing; click OK and you have created a wreath of your selected objects. This is a lot of fun and very addictive!

Set preferences: Line Color and Line Width can be set as a preference. For a program like Click n Stitch^tm the best line width is 1/18; set it once and you don't have to change it again. Good to set the preference that suits your embroidery program.

Export as solid color bitmap *.bmp. Extra, in addition to the color jpg. Jpgs aren't solid and autodigitizing programs need solid colors.

Edit - Grid maker. Is perfect to create a basis for a quiltblock-design. Just choose the size and set the number of patches horizontally and vertically. Then draw a few connecting diagonal lines and color the block. Just perfect.

Improved help-file. Set up more like a tutorial, start reading the first topic and proceed in the given order. That will take you through the entire program.

Exported drawings will be cropped with some extra white space around it. This prevents problems with lines touching the edge of the bitmap, causing broken lines/leaking colors.

"Send to Front/Back": you can select larger objects that are overlapping smaller objects (because you drew those larger objects later), right-click and choose "Send to Back". This will make the smaller object and its color reappear.

You can use Ctrl+Arrow Keys to move selected points or lines in small increments. Great for fine tuning your drawing.

All save and export functions will remember the last location you saved a pattern. So if you create a special folder anywhere on your computer where you want to keep the *.pre patterns, you only have to save one there. Next time you choose Save as, that folder will be opened. Or if you have a special folder with those millions of WMF-files, you only have to import a WMF file from that folder once with File - Import WMF and the next time you want to import a WMF, that folder will automatically be opened. Or if you have a special folder with your clipart in *.bmp, *.jpg or *wmf format, you only have to find that location once via View - Scan or Open Background, and next time you want to load a background image, that folder will be opened.