How to make your own palette
Note, over time, new features are introduced into our software regularly and some screen layouts change.
Everything discussed below is still valid, although some screen layouts will now vary.



This section was prompted by the following questions:

Why do I only see 40 colors?
Where are all the other DMC threads?
I don’t use DMC.. can I start with Anchor/ some other kind of threads?



When you first start the application, there will be 40 or so colours in the palette.
As shipped, these are from the DMC set of threads, and are a random set of colours which we think are a good general purpose set.

But these aren’t all the DMC thread by any means, and they may not be useful to you.
If you prefer Anchor or other types of thread, they won’t be useful at all.

Its important to clarify the difference between a palette of threads, and a thread set. (these are how we describe them.. other software manufacturers may use other terms)

We compare the palette and thread sets to the way an artist works.
The full set of available colours (to an artist) is wide if not infinite. This wide range corresponds to a set of threads. (DMC has over 400 colours)
The artist places some of these colours on the palette, and is working with a smaller set of colours at any time.
This equates to our palette.

Pasted Graphic 1

The colours that appear when you start a new chart are those in the ‘default.palette’ file. We will come back to that later, but you can fill that with any colours you like.

Any one chart can have 255 colours, and those colours can come from any manufacturer.

To create your own palette:

  • Start with a new chart.
  • Use Palette/remove all unused threads
  • Then Palette / Add a Thread
  • Then select DMC or any other maker from the list of makers
  • Then select up to 255 colours for THIS DESIGN, and use the arrow to move them to the selection area on the right.
  • Then click OK


Pasted Graphic


To make your own palette be the default:
If you create a list of colours on the left you like, you can save that set for later
Go to the Palette menu and choose “Save as default”

To make your own palette be available later:
If you create a list of colours on the left you like, you can save that set for later
Go to the Palette menu and choose “Save Palette as”
Call the saved palette whatever you like, with .palette on the end

To switch all the colours to Anchor:
Go to the Palette menu and choose ‘Convert design into...’ then select the range you want to use.

To remove colours you don’t want:
Go to the Palette menu and choose ‘Remove all unused thread colours’

To import a picture using only your colours:
During the import, select your .palette file instead of a .threads file.