# Embroidery file format specifications



## DRMRyan (Mar 26, 2011)

Hi all,

I have a Toyota AD860, and the Forte software used to send designs to it is no longer supported. As much as I try, I can't get it to work on Win10. Whilst I do have a couple of machines with Win7 that'll still work with it, I'm looking for a slightly longer term solution.

Seeing as I'm a professional software developer, I thought I'd see if I could write something myself to create the files needed to send to it, and then it became something of a project.

Does anyone have the specifications of the various embroidery formats they could send me, in particular the old Toyota .10o format? It'd save me a chunk of time analysing test files. I've found specs for .dst and .pes already which are the formats I'd initially like to be able to import. But the .10o spec is the one I really need in order to progress.

My plan is to release my program into the public domain as free/donation supported when it's done.

Thanks

Daz


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## digidana (Jun 20, 2016)

i've been digitizing for 20 years and years ago we had an 820, two 830s, and an 850. i've never had to write out the the .10o format. every toyota i've ever digitized for has used dst format...


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## gardenhillemb (Oct 29, 2015)

You should be able to load the software in Windows 10 under Windows 7 compatibility mode.


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## DRMRyan (Mar 26, 2011)

digidana said:


> i've been digitizing for 20 years and years ago we had an 820, two 830s, and an 850. i've never had to write out the the .10o format. every toyota i've ever digitized for has used dst format...


I've checked the file that Forte creates when you cue it up, it's identical to 10o.

I did try sending it a dst file format but it just threw an RS232C error. 

What software do you use to communicate with your Toshiba machines? I'd prefer to cut Forte out of the loop since it's only purpose is to send the data to the machine. I use PE-Design to digitise but it won't send via serial.



gardenhillemb said:


> You should be able to load the software in Windows 10 under Windows 7 compatibility mode.


It doesn't work. I had to jump through hoops just to get Forte working on Windows 7, but Windows 10 just won't play ball no matter what I try. 

Daz


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## digidana (Jun 20, 2016)

ok...programming is WAY over my head! when we had the toyotas, they ran using an old pantograms program. it was a long time ago...i don't think the program would even run on windows xp.


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## DRMRyan (Mar 26, 2011)

That's the one, it's Forte by Pantograms. Awful program. To get it working on Windows 7, you have to install several patches, then patch the patches, then manually overwrite files... Then they gave up and made it unsupported. I've tried everything I can and it won't work on Windows 10.

Whichever file type you open with Forte, it converts it to a 10o file format before sending it to the machine. You don't see this happen, but it does - the queued files are dropped in C:\Designs with a different suffix - thf and tdf, but they're the same format as 00o and 10o files when you save a design in Toyota format. I wrote a hexdump program to compare them 

Daz


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## digidana (Jun 20, 2016)

might be easier to buy an old computer at good will.


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## DRMRyan (Mar 26, 2011)

Well for now it's not an immediate issue as I do have a computer that'll talk to it, but MS are making Vista unsupported this month and Win7 will be next in a couple of years time so I wanted to come up with a solution in the meantime so that I don't end up with an embroidery machine shaped white elephant.

Daz


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