setting colors on exp designs or designs not native ofm

[Joanie]

I hope I'm missing something really obvious!

Is there a way to open a non native ofm file and have the colors be at least close?

If not, is there an easier way to set the colors? I have a 16 color design, with 189 trims. It was digitized on Wilcom software, it was saved as an exp and also as an ofm.

None of the colors are correct. For instance, in the actual design, trim 1, 4 & 8 all use the same thread color. In the design that I open in Design Shop Lite V9, trims 1, 4 & 8 are all different colors.
(It is also the same in the Amaya OS v10)
Do I really have to go through each one of the 189 trims and set the correct color?

I'm really new, hopefully I'm using the correct terms and that this makes sense.
Thank you in advance!
Joanie Carl
Montana

[Judy]

You have a design with 189 color changes? ACK! I'd retire after one like that!

I T-H-I-N-K you can hold down the control key while you select 1, 4 and 8, and then click in the design tree and change the color. My embroidery machine is asleep right now so I can't do a trial run.

[GF]

Sometimes holding the CNTRL key works when changing colors, but you need to be very observant to make sure. I've also found that if you change color 7 (for instance) to the same color as color 8, even with the intention of changing color 8 next, the two will automatically convert to one color stop. I wish that wasn't the case, but it is and very annoying! I sew out very complicated designs all the time with many color changes. The software has bugs that make it very difficult. One of them being that not all thread colors are listed so you have to pick a random color for those (like variegated, metallic, etc.).

What I do is paper/pencil. I literally write down each color stop, then I write down the needle stop to correspond. It's the only way I've found that is smarter than the DS software unfortunately. Hopefully, they'll actually upgrade from '95 one day and rewrite the program for Windows which would be a true upgrade instead of an update to the native Windows 95 version they keep revising.