Honest answers

Do you need to digitize? What each kind of embroidery software actually does

"Embroidery software" covers three jobs that have almost nothing in common. Buying the wrong one is the commonest and most expensive mistake in this hobby.

The three jobs

You have	You want	You need
A design file	To see it before stitching	A viewer
A design in the wrong format	Your machine to read it	A converter
A photo, logo or drawing	Stitches made from it	A digitizer

Viewers

A viewer decodes a design and draws it: size, stitch count, colour stops, thread list, the path the needle takes. It changes nothing. This is what you want ninety per cent of the time, and it should be cheap or free — Hoopside views for free, with no ads.

Converters

A converter re-encodes an existing design for another machine's format. It moves stitches between encodings; it does not invent them and it does not improve them. A good one splits over-long stitches for the target format rather than truncating them — see why that matters.

Digitizers

Digitizing is the work of making a stitched design from artwork that has none: deciding stitch types, directions, densities, underlay, pull compensation and sequence. It is a craft skill with software attached, and the serious tools — Wilcom, Hatch, Embrilliance, and the free open-source Ink/Stitch — cost from nothing to thousands and all take real time to learn.

Automatic conversion, honestly

Software that does this step automatically exists, and the output is usually poor: dense, badly sequenced and unpleasant to stitch. Any phone app promising professional results from a snapshot for a few pounds is overselling. Hoopside does not digitize at all, and says so on its own store listing rather than letting you find out after paying.

So which do you need?

You bought a design and cannot see it. A viewer. Free.
You bought a design your machine will not read. A converter.
You have artwork and no stitches at all. A digitizer — and either the time to learn it or the budget to pay a digitizer, who will usually do a one-off logo for less than the software costs.

What digitizing actually involves

It is not tracing. A digitizer decides, for every region of the artwork, which stitch type suits it — satin for a smooth edge, fill for a large area, run for a fine line — and then which direction those stitches lie in, how densely they sit, what underlay goes beneath them to stop the fabric shifting, and how much to compensate for the pull the stitching itself creates.

On top of that comes sequencing: which region stitches first so later ones do not distort it, and where to put colour changes so the operator is not rethreading more than necessary. None of this is in the artwork. All of it is judgement.

What it costs

Three routes, and the right one depends on how often you need it.

Pay a digitizer per design. Usually the cheapest answer for a one-off logo, and you get someone else's experience rather than your own first attempt.
Learn free software. Ink/Stitch is open source, capable and genuinely free; the cost is your time learning it.
Buy commercial software. Wilcom, Hatch and Embrilliance sit at very different prices. Worth it if you are digitizing regularly; not worth it for one logo.

How to tell which tool an app is

Store listings blur these three deliberately, so read for the verbs. An app that says "view", "open", "preview" is a viewer. One that says "convert", "save as", "change format" is a converter. Only one that talks about stitch types, underlay, density or pull compensation is really a digitizer — and that vocabulary is hard to fake.

If a listing promises all three for a few pounds, the digitizing is the part that is not true.

The common case

Most people asking this question already have a design file. They bought it, it arrived, and their phone will not show it. That is a viewer's job, it should cost nothing, and it takes about ten seconds.

Embroidery file formats explained — Which machine reads which format, what each one stores, and which of them carry colour at all.
How to convert a DST to PES — and why renaming the file fails — What a real format conversion does to the stitches, and why changing the extension produces a file the machine refuses.
How to open a PES file on your phone — What a .pes file is, how to view one on Android, and what to check before you hoop anything.

If you have a design and need to see it

Hoopside opens PES, DST, JEF, EXP, VP3, XXX and PEC designs on Android and shows each one the way it will stitch — real size, stitch count, numbered colour stops and the thread list. Viewing is free, with no ads and no account, and nothing leaves your phone.