PES File
Pronounced: P-E-SThe native stitch file format for Brother and Babylock home and commercial embroidery machines.
PES is the proprietary stitch file format used by Brother Industries and Babylock embroidery machines. It is the second most common format after DST, particularly in the home and small-business embroidery market where Brother machines dominate.
Unlike DST, PES stores color information in the file itself, referencing Brother thread codes. This makes PES slightly more user-friendly for home embroiderers because the machine display can show the actual thread color for each section rather than requiring an external chart. PES files also embed a low-resolution thumbnail of the design.
PES has evolved through multiple versions. Older PES v1 files are limited in feature support. Modern PES v9, v10, and v11 files support advanced commands and are required for newer multi-needle Brother PR-series machines. When converting from another format to PES, the software version target matters.
Most commercial shops do not work natively in PES, but they will export to PES when a customer is taking the file home for a Brother PE800, SE600, or PR1050X. If you are buying a digitizing service for use on a Brother machine, request PES specifically, since converting DST to PES on a Brother machine sometimes produces unexpected color mappings.
Examples
- design.pes loaded onto a Brother PR1055X for home production
Related Terms
- Stitch File →
- A digital file that contains the instructions an embroidery machine uses to stitch a design, including needle positions, color stops, and trim commands.
- DST File →
- The Tajima stitch file format and the universal standard for commercial embroidery production worldwide.
- JEF File →
- The native stitch file format for Janome embroidery machines.
- EXP File →
- The stitch file format used by Melco and Bernina embroidery machines.
- Digitizing →
- The process of converting flat artwork into a machine-readable stitch file that controls every needle movement of an embroidery machine.
Used in our services
PES format for Brother and Babylock machines, hand-digitized.
PES File Digitizing →