ixo Help & Docs

Go to ixostitch.com and click “Open editor” — or jump straight to /editor.html. Loading a pattern is optional: the editor opens with an empty 30×30 canvas.

The “New” button in the top toolbar opens a modal — enter width and height in cells (up to 200×200 on Free). Already working? “Resize” changes the canvas without erasing stitches.

On the right is the palette panel. Click “+ Color” to open the DMC picker. Search by number (321) or name (Red). On the left is the vertical toolbar: cross, half cross, backstitch, bead, knot, eraser. Tooltips show on hover.

Left mouse button draws, right erases. Wheel — scroll, Ctrl/⌘+wheel — zoom, Space+drag — pan. Every action can be reverted with Ctrl+Z (Mac: ⌘+Z).

“Save” in the toolbar opens a format picker:

• OXS — the working stitching format (opens in Pattern Maker, MacStitch, FlossCross).
• PDF — print-ready pattern with cover, colour key and chart pages.
• PNG — image for previews and sharing.

If you are signed in, the pattern is also auto-saved to the cloud (3 slots on Free).

• Pattern size is set in cells, not pixels. Standard Aida 14ct gives roughly 14 cells per inch.
• Zoom: 25%–400% in 26 fixed steps. Controls: + / − in the toolbar, Ctrl/⌘+wheel on the canvas, or drag the “100%” chip in the status bar left/right (8 px = 1 step).
• The “100% / Center” button restores the natural scale and centers the canvas in the window.

Three visibility buttons live in the top-right of the toolbar:

• Grid (#) — thin lines per cell. Auto-thinned at low zooms (at 25% only every 10th cell is shown).
• Centerlines — dashed lines through the middle of the pattern. Handy for symmetrical compositions.
• Rulers — cell numbers along the top and left. At zoom ≥75% every cell is labelled, with major ticks every 5.

The moon/sun button toggles light and dark themes. The choice is saved. Canvas, grid and ruler colours adapt automatically — the stitches look the same in both themes.

In the right panel, on the “About” tab, there is a fabric card. A click opens the “Fabric” modal: pick a type (Aida 14/16/18, Lugana, Evenweave 28ct) and a colour from the Zweigart palette or a custom hex. The fabric colour affects rendering: empty cells show in that exact shade — the pattern looks like a finished piece.

Eraser (E) clears stitches in a cell. Properties: brush size (1×1, 2×2, 3×3) and target — what exactly to erase:

• All — every layer in the cell.
• Crosses — only full / half / quarter / threeq / petit.
• Backstitch — only lines.
• Beads / knots — only S.beads / S.knots.

Right mouse button works as an eraser regardless of the active tool.

Eyedropper (P) — clicking a cell makes its colour the active palette colour.

Selection (S) — a marquee for copying and transforming.

1. Drag a marquee — a rectangle appears.
2. Click inside — it turns into a “floating fragment” (lifted from the canvas and following the cursor).
3. Use the property buttons: flip H/V, rotate ±90°, copy (Ctrl+C), cut (Ctrl+X), paste (Ctrl+V), clear.
4. Click outside the selection or press Esc — the fragment commits to the canvas.

Hand (H) or holding Space — pan mode: drag the canvas, the cursor switches to a hand.

Symmetry (X) — cycles through: off → H (mirror over the horizontal axis) → V (over the vertical) → 4× (draws into all four quadrants at once: each stitch is mirrored across the centre on both axes, producing 4 copies). The current mode shows on the button (· / H / V / 4×).

The “+ Color” button opens the picker. Available palettes:

• DMC — 528 colours, the default for most patterns.
• Anchor — 445 colours, with automatic DMC mapping in the “Equivalent” column.
• Gamma, Madeira, PNK Kirovsky, Ljubica, Mill Hill (beads).

In the modal:

• Search — by number or name.
• Group filter — colour wheels (reds, blues, greens…) or series (for Mill Hill).
• Custom hex — for non-standard colours via the “Custom colour” field.
• ✦ Magic — finds the closest DMC for a given hex.
• ⊙ Eyedropper — picks a colour straight from the canvas (or the background image, if it shows through).

Clicking a swatch opens the edit modal:

• Change colour — reopens the picker.
• Blend — mix two DMC colours. Set the strand count for each (usually 1+1 or 2+1). In OXS such a colour is written as DMC 321 [+] DMC 906.
• Symbol — pick a letter or shape for the black-and-white mode. 6 groups: geometry, special, arrows, patterns, letters, digits.
• Equivalents — table showing the matching Anchor codes (or DMC if Anchor is active).
• Delete — red button in the footer. Every cell using that colour is cleared.

The same DMC can be added several times with different strand counts. For example, DMC 310 (2 strands) for the main outline and DMC 310 (1 strand) for fine detail. They are independent palindexes, but in “Floss usage” they collapse into one row.

Created via the “Create variant” button in the colour edit modal. Variants appear as grouped rows under the parent colour.

A select above the list: “Default”, “By number”, “By cross count”, “By backstitch”, “Manual”. Dragging a swatch flips sorting to “Manual” and physically reorders (stitches are renumbered automatically).

The “Floss usage” button on the “About” tab opens a per-colour calculation table. Modes (top of the modal):

• Skein fraction — estimate of how many skeins you need (1 skein = 6 strands × 8 m = 48 strand-metres).
• Metres/yards of 6-strand cord — the length of the source cord.
• Metres/yards of strands — total length of working strands (accounting for strand count).

The “Reserve” slider adds 0–50% to the result (15% by default). Sort by colour number, by usage, or manually (drag-and-drop).

The 🔍 button in the palette header runs an analysis: it looks for pairs of colours with similar symbols sitting close to each other (within 5 cells). Useful before printing a black-and-white chart, so you don’t mix up O and 0, × and +.

• Background. An uploaded image (JPEG / PNG / PDF) — a reference you draw over.
• Crosses. Every full cross, half cross, ¾ and ¼, petit.
• Backstitch. Outline lines.
• Beads / knots. Beads and french knots.

The “Layers” tab in the right panel. For every layer:

• “Eye” — show / hide the layer. Hiding does not delete data, just hides it on the canvas.
• Opacity slider — 0–100%. Transparent layers still accept clicks (you can draw “blind”, but it is not recommended).

• Hide backstitch — while drawing crosses so the lines don’t get in the way.
• Hide beads — when exporting a “crosses only” version.
• Translucent background — to see how the pattern lies over the reference image.

On the “Layers” tab — the “Upload background” button. Supported:

• JPEG, PNG — regular images.
• PDF — loads the first page. If there are several pages, a picker modal appears with thumbnails.

After loading, the button changes to “Replace background”.

Open the background for editing: click its row in the “Layers” panel (or press “Move” in properties). 8 handles appear on the canvas:

• 4 corner handles (square) — proportional resize.
• 4 side handles (round) — independent stretch along one axis.

Drag the centre of the background or the handles. Size is in cells, not pixels — the background snaps to the pattern grid.

If the background already has a drawn grid (e.g. a scan of an old pattern), use calibration:

1. Click “Calibrate” in background properties.
2. Click the top-left corner of the grid in the background.
3. Click the bottom-right corner.

The background scales automatically to fit exactly 10×10 cells of the pattern. You can resize manually afterwards.

• Opacity slider on the “Layers” tab — 0–100%.
• Precise scale — fields bg-scale-x / bg-scale-y in properties. Stretch one axis only, or link them with the lock.
• “Reset scale” — returns to 1.0.

OXS (*.oxs) — open XML format. Compatible with MacStitch, Pattern Maker (export), FlossCross, Saga, Ursa. Every layer is preserved, including blends and colour variants.

XSD (*.xsd) — HobbyWare Pattern Maker binary format. ixo fully parses the palette (including blends and custom brands), every stitch type, backstitches, knots and beads. Special stitches (special, lazy daisy) are parsed into data but not yet rendered.

How to load:

• The “Open” button in the toolbar → file dialog.
• Drop a file onto the editor canvas.
• Drop an image (JPEG/PNG) — it loads automatically as a background.
• Drop a PDF — opens as a background with page picker.

The “Save” button opens a modal with a radio format picker:

Full pattern with every layer, the palette and the background (if any). It is the working file — open it again in ixo or hand it to designers.

Print-ready stitching version:

• Cover — pattern preview, name, author, size, colour and stitch counts.
• Colour key — table with colours, DMC codes, symbols and the cross count for each.
• Chart pages — blocks of 50×70 cells with coordinates around the edges.
• Colour mode: “Color” (as in the editor) or “Black & white” (symbols only).

A picture of the entire pattern for previews. Supports “Color” / “B&W”. Useful for social media, email lists, marketplace thumbnails.

The “Copy as PNG” button copies the image to the clipboard without downloading a file.

• Pattern Maker (HobbyWare): OXS — import ✓ / export ✓; XSD — import ✓.
• MacStitch (DP Software): OXS — import ✓ / export ✓.
• FlossCross (Saga): OXS — import ✓ / export ✓.
• Ursa: OXS — import ✓ / export ✓.
• StitchSketch (iOS): OXS — import ✓.

This is different from dropping a PDF as a background (see “Import and export”) — that just places the page under the canvas for manual tracing. Recognition instead reads the chart and builds real stitches you can edit.

Start a recognition from:

• The “From PDF” card (Beta) on the empty canvas, when nothing is open yet.
• The “From PDF” tab in the “New pattern” dialog.
• Dropping a PDF straight onto either of those.

Pick a PDF (up to 20 MB), optionally name the pattern and its author, then press “Recognise”. It usually takes under a minute — the file is processed on the server, so keep the window open until it's done.

Recognition works best on clear charts with a visible grid and a colour legend — printed patterns, store-bought PDFs, or clean scans. A fallback lets it read charts whose symbols aren't a standard embedded font too, so it isn't limited to text-only PDFs. Very blurry scans, charts with no legend, or pages that are mostly decorative art can come out patchy or fail outright.

If something goes wrong you'll see a plain-language reason: the file isn't a PDF, it's over 20 MB, the chart couldn't be recognised, the request timed out, or — if you try too often in a short time — a rate limit. Wait a bit and try again.

Every recognised pattern comes with a report in an accordion next to the preview: a confidence badge (High / Medium / Low), the size, colour and stitch counts, a “Check this” list of warnings (low-confidence regions you can highlight on the preview, uncertain backstitch lines, a grid that wasn't fully detected, unreadable pages), and the palette with any colour flagged as recognised with low confidence.

Recognition accuracy depends on the source PDF. Always look the pattern over after opening it and fix anything that looks off by hand.

Recognising a chart and browsing, zooming and editing the result in the editor is free for every account, signed in or not.

Saving it — to .oxs, PNG/PDF export, or your cloud account — is a Pro feature (“take-home”). Pro includes 20 take-homes a month; once you use them up you'll see a message and have to wait for next month's reset. Recognising and previewing doesn't use up the quota — only taking a pattern home does.

After you open a recognised pattern, a banner asks how accurate it was (1–5) and, if you agree, lets you share the pattern and the source PDF to help improve future recognition — entirely optional. Dismissed it? A small star icon in the header brings the same form back.

This is different from dropping a photo onto an open canvas as a background (see “Background”) — that just places the picture behind the grid for manual tracing. Photo → pattern instead analyses the photo and builds real, editable stitches.

Start a conversion from:

• The “From photo” card (Beta) on the empty canvas, when nothing is open yet.
• The “From photo” tab in the “New pattern” dialog.
• Dropping a photo straight onto either of those.

Pick a photo (up to 20 MB, up to about 40 megapixels). Conversion runs locally in your browser — no upload needed for the base pipeline. A split preview shows the original photo and the result side by side so you can see the effect of every change before it's applied.

The output pattern goes up to 200 cells on the longer side (width and height can be locked to the photo's aspect ratio).

A slider sets how many DMC threads to use (8–40), and five style presets give you a starting point — Simple (fewer colours, big flat zones), Balanced, Detailed (more nuance and shading), Photoreal (maximum photo detail) or Clipart (clean outlines, flat colours). From there you can fine-tune the palette itself: switch between tile and list view, edit individual thread colours, or merge every thread used below a chosen number of stitches into its nearest neighbour.

A free “Tune” panel adds: Remove background (needs a signed-in account and an internet connection — a server-side model separates the subject from the background and fills it with a colour you pick, turning the background into one flat thread you can stitch or erase later), an automatic backstitch outline around contours (handy for clipart and small sizes), Detail (pulls out local contrast in shadows and highlights), Colour transitions (dithers colour boundaries so gradients look smoother instead of banded), Cleanup (smooths jagged edges and dissolves tiny stray dots), and a thread tone slider that nudges whites and light tones warmer or cooler.

The “Advanced” accordion adds auto-correction, a highlight roll-off, brightness / contrast / saturation / vibrance / sharpness sliders, a “stylize” pass that flattens the photo into a more painted look before quantizing (less speckle, smoother transitions), and thread blends (mixing two strands of different colour in one stitch for smoother gradients).

The “Masks” accordion lets you limit processing to a painted region of the photo (Subject / Background / Skin) with a smooth or simplify brush. Right now only “Subject” actually works — it runs a segmentation model locally in your browser to separate the subject from the background, so skin and detail areas get finer treatment while the background stays calm. The rest (Background, Skin, both brushes) is a preview of what's coming — it shows a “coming soon” message for now, even on Pro.

Both accordions stay visible on Free so you can see what's there; their controls are disabled, and clicking one opens the Pro upsell. Unlike PDF → OXS, there's no monthly quota here — once you're Pro, use Advanced and Masks as much as you like.

Open the planner from the “Planner” item in the header's account menu, or the “WIP planner” card on the dashboard — both link to /tracker.

Add a project with the “New project” button: a name (required), an optional designer/pattern name and total stitch count, and an optional planning block — set either a norm per session (per day/week/month) or a desired finish date, and the other recalculates automatically as you type. Projects here are free-form: the planner doesn't pull them from an open pattern in the editor or your cloud schemas, you just name what you're stitching.

The “Stitching today” hero card at the top always surfaces one active project to work on. Once you have 2+ active projects, a queue strip appears with three rotation modes: round-robin (a different project each day, the default), focus (push through the one closest to finishing, or whichever you've pinned), and random.

Log progress with the “Log” button — type a stitch count or just tap through without one; a project's own card can log by percentage instead. Every entry updates that day's square, the streak and the queue.

Each project sits in one of three statuses: active, on hold (paused without a deadline hanging over it — resume in one tap) or completed. Put an active project on hold, or pin it as the queue's focus target, from its card menu.

A project's card shows an estimated finish date (“Finish ≈”), based on stitches done, stitches left and your average daily pace once you've logged a few counts.

The sticky stats rail switches between week / month / year and shows a tap-heatmap of active days, a top-3 projects ranking (by stitches or by days worked), and running totals for the period.

A streak counts consecutive days with any stitching logged — miss a day and it resets, though your best-ever streak stays on record. An opt-in pace goal (a weekly, monthly or yearly stitch target) shows a progress bar and tells you whether you're ahead or behind, computed from your logged totals for that period.

Each project's card also keeps a day-by-day stitch log: change an entry's date, delete one, or download the whole log as CSV.

Marking a project completed requires at least one photo of the finished piece — the first one becomes its cover. An “already framed” toggle is optional, and a frame photo can be added later; a completed project can be reopened again if it wasn't really done.

The Gallery below groups finished work into Favorites and All completed, with running totals — stitches, finishes, days with a needle, and your record streak, for this year and all time. The “Share” button opens a private preview card (“My year with a needle”); public sharing itself is coming soon, so right now it's a preview only you can see.

Link a purchased pattern in your Inventory to a planner project and a small chip on its card (“From a purchased pattern”) points back to it. The reverse — starting a project straight from an Inventory item, in the “New project” dialog — is marked “soon” and isn't wired up yet.

Free plan limits: keep as many active projects as you like — that cap is gone. The only one left is 10 photos per project, and hitting it opens a soft upsell explaining why: photos cost real storage, rows in a database don't. Pro raises the photo limit to 30; unlike PDF → OXS, there's no separate monthly quota on top of that.

Open the Inventory from the “Inventory” item in the header's account menu — it links to /inventory. Signed out, the page shows a sign-in prompt instead of tabs: tracking threads, fabrics and patterns is tied to your account, there's no guest/local mode here.

The Threads tab tracks what you own by brand and color code: add one via a brand→color picker (a searchable swatch grid) with an optional quantity, or select several swatches at once before submitting. Switch between a swatch grid grouped by brand (default) or an accordion list — both support search by code and a brand filter.

“Fabrics” works the same way but from a combobox of built-in presets — Aida 11/14/16/18ct, linen 28/32/36ct, evenweave 25/28ct in common colors — or free text for anything else, plus an optional size/count and a single photo.

“External patterns” is for paper and PDF patterns bought outside ixo: a name, optional designer/source/notes, an optional cover photo, and one status — Want to buy, Purchased, In progress or Done. A “from PDF” cover option is visible in the form, but it's only a placeholder today — it shows a “soon” message, no recognition happens.

Any add/edit form has a secondary “Add to wishlist” checkbox — tick it (instead of, or alongside, owning the item) and it also shows up aggregated on the Wishlist tab, grouped by threads/fabrics/patterns. Wishlist and “in stock” aren't exclusive: a thread you own but are running low on can sit as owned on its own tab and as wanted on Wishlist at the same time (dual-membership) — the wishlist checkbox never removes an item from stock.

For Threads, “Add from list” bulk-pastes codes for one brand at once — separate them with commas, spaces, semicolons or line breaks; the parser tolerates the mix and reports how many were added, already owned, or not recognized.

The add-thread modal's “Whole palette” button adds every color in the selected brand's full catalog in one go (skipping ones you already have) — it confirms the count first, since a big catalog like DMC's ~528 colors takes a short sequence of requests.

From an external pattern's ⋯ menu, “Start embroidering” creates a new Planner project from it (or links it to one you're already tracking) and opens that project — the linked project then carries a “From a purchased pattern” chip back here (see “Planner”). That's the only direction wired up today: the Planner's own “New project” dialog still has a disabled “Take from inventory” button marked “soon”.

Unlike the Planner, Photo → pattern and PDF → OXS, Inventory has no Free/Pro caps today — no limit on how many threads, fabrics or patterns you can track, and no separate gate.

Account: ixostitch.com/cabinet. Two ways to sign in:

• Google — click the button, pick an account.
• Magic link — enter an e-mail, a sign-in link arrives by mail. No passwords.

Disposable e-mail providers are not accepted.

• Patterns — up to 3 slots on Free, 50 on Pro (see “Pro & subscription” below).
• Profile — name, avatar, theme settings.

Independent of the account, the editor takes a local IndexedDB snapshot every 3 minutes (3 rotating slots). Restore is offered only after a crash — if you closed the tab normally, the next open starts on an empty canvas (slots are kept but not auto-restored).

A status indicator sits in the bottom-right corner: “modified” while you work, “saved N min ago” after autosave.

In the cabinet — the “Delete account” button. Removed: profile, all cloud patterns. Local autosave slots remain on the device.

• No watermark on PNG exports (Free adds one).
• Larger patterns — up to 500×500 cells, instead of 200×200 on Free.
• 50 cloud save slots for cross-device sync, instead of 3.
• Taking home recognized PDF patterns — saving, exporting and adding them to your projects, up to 20/month (see “PDF → OXS” above).
• The “Advanced” and “Masks” accordions in Photo → pattern (see “Photo → pattern” above).
• Unlimited active Planner projects and 30 photos per project, instead of 10 and 10 on Free (see “Planner” above).
• Priority support.

Everything the Free plan already includes keeps working exactly the same — Pro only adds on top, nothing is taken away.

• Monthly — $5.99/month, cancel anytime.
• Yearly — $49/year (≈$4.08/month, save about 32%).
• Lifetime — $79 one-time (Early Bird price, regularly $99) — pay once, yours for good.

All prices in USD. See the full plan comparison on the pricing page.

Open ixostitch.com/pricing, pick a plan and click “Get Pro”. Checkout is handled by Paddle, who acts as Merchant of Record and takes care of payment and applicable taxes (VAT/sales tax). Pro activates automatically once the payment goes through — usually within seconds, occasionally a couple of minutes.

In your cabinet, the “Subscription” card shows your current plan and, for an active or cancelled subscription, a “Manage subscription” button — it opens Paddle's Customer Portal, where you can update your card, view invoices or cancel.

Cancelling doesn't cut you off right away: Pro stays active until the end of the period you already paid for, then the account returns to Free limits.

A Lifetime purchase has no recurring billing, so there's nothing to manage — it doesn't show a “Manage subscription” button.

Every paid plan — monthly, yearly or Lifetime — is covered by a 14-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. Request it through Paddle's own customer portal (paddle.net) or by emailing hello@ixostitch.com with your order reference. Full terms, including the rare cases where a refund can be declined, are in the refund policy.

Full cross (×). The base stitch: two diagonals corner-to-corner. Fills a whole cell. The most common — usually 80–95% of a pattern.

Half stitch (/, \). One diagonal. Used for backgrounds, highlights, soft transitions. / — bottom-left to top-right, \ — the reverse.

Three-quarter (¾). A full cross minus one of the four corners. Often paired with the opposite quarter of another colour for curved outlines.

Quarter (¼). A small triangle in a corner of a cell. A rare stitch used in highly detailed patterns.

Petit stitch. A full cross sized to a quarter of a cell. Used for very fine detail in faces and lettering.

Backstitch (BS). A straight segment between two grid nodes. Used for outlines, lettering, fine lines. Worked after the crosses.

French knot (FK). A small raised knot at a point. Eyes, berries, sparkles on clothes.

Bead. A bead sewn onto the fabric. ixo supports the Mill Hill catalogue.