We are excited to have Eileen Roche, Editor of Designs in Machine Embroidery share this content with you, which was originally posted on Eileen’s Machine Embroidery Blog: 

By Sherry McCary, 
Product Development, Designs in Machine Embroidery

How do I get designs from the design CD to my embroidery machine?

When the CD is inserted, an Explorer window like the one in the image below will open. Explorer shows detailed information about your files, folders, and drives. It allows you to organize, copy, move, rename and delete files, and will allow you to copy files from the CD to a USB stick/card.

To get the files from the CD to your embroidery machine, copy them to a USB stick or a card that works with your machine. Since your embroidery machine specializes in embroidery, not speedy computing, you’ll want to use the smallest USB stick you can find – 4GB or less. Most sewing machine dealers sell USB sticks that work well with embroidery machines.

To copy the files, open a second Explorer window. In Windows 8, just click anywhere on the main screen and type Explorer. In other versions of Windows, click on Computer from the Start Menu.

The image below shows both Explorer windows open.

In the new Explorer window, click on the USB drive to display its contents.

In the original Explorer window that is displaying the CD contents, navigate to the files you want to copy onto the USB/card. Left click on your chosen file/files. Keeping the left click depressed, drag the files into the Explorer window for the USB drive.

The image below shows how both Explorer windows look after navigating to the design files on the CD and copying them to the USB drive.

In this example, I only wanted to stitch the first 6 designs, so those are the only ones copied to the USB.

Voila! Remove the USB from your computer, insert it in your embroidery machine and let the fun begin!

All embroidery machine brands and models operate differently, so if needed, your machine manual or your dealer can help with any questions you may have about retrieving designs from the USB at your embroidery machine.

How do I see the designs that are on my design CD?

Software that allows you to see an image of embroidery designs is not included with Windows. You need embroidery software to view embroidery designs on your computer. You do not need embroidery software to use designs from a CD.

What software should I buy to see designs on my computer?

There are a multitude of options for embroidery software! The first thing you need to do is to decide whether you want to simply view designs, resize and/or recolor designs, combine designs, or do digitizing.

If you are not planning to learn digitizing but would like a software that lets you see designs on your computer, resize designs, rotate and flip designs, change thread colors, merge multiple designs, and print design templates, our Perfect Placement software is quite affordable at just $39.99. (On top of all those features, the main star of Perfect Placement software is the built-in Placement Guide designs that make it quick and easy to precisely position designs on most wearables – no templates required! This easy-to-use software also includes 72 gorgeous Bonus Designs!)

Thanks for reading!

Reprinted with permission from Eileen's Blog.