There are a couple of ways to replace beads in your pattern.
The easiest is to drag a bead from your Palette, Quick Palette or Bead List onto the bead you want to replace in your pattern. Doing this will replace all occurrences of that bead in your pattern with the one you dropped onto it.
There is also a video that demonstrates how to do this on the Learn page of the website.
Copy and paste works slightly different than some other graphics applications you may be used to.
With BeadTool, if you don't see the copied selection, it doesn't exist. For example:
There is a video that will demonstrate how to copy and paste here.
To add letters and text to your pattern, follow these steps:
The text is now in the clipboard.
There is also an instructional video that shows you how to do it here.
Hint: PNG format gives the best quality image and JPG gives the smallest file size.
It's not possible to change the orientation of the pattern in BeadTool 4. A future version will have this feature.
I have gone to great lengths to ensure that the sizes of the beads are correct. However, if you disagree with them, there is a solution. While you can't alter Stock palettes directly, you can make a copy of the palette and alter those measurements.
Now that new copy of the palette will be available in the BeadTool Palettes list. However, it will not change the measurements of the old patterns that used the Stock palette. You will need to use the Transpose function to alter existing patterns.
Transposing
You can change the palette associated with any pattern by clicking Pattern->Transpose from the main menu. This will not always exchange each bead 1:1 .
BeadTool only supports creating patterns with one stitch at a time. If you need to create a pattern with multiple stitches, you will need to create separate patterns for each stitch.
You can save your pattern's current list of beads as a custom palette very easily. This comes in handy when you want to create a new pattern with that same limited set of bead colors.
Now you can change the current palette to the one you just saved and start designing.
There are a few variables that determine the outcome of a photo transfer. The main one is the photo you're using. Some photos will transfer with no problems and others won't transfer well at all no matter what you do.
Here are a few pointers to help with transferring those tough photos:
BeadTool lets you choose what types of beads you're willing to work with. When transferring those tough photos it can be helpful to eliminate certain kinds of beads.
In the Show these types section, uncheck the following:
In the Show these finishes section, uncheck the following:
Sometimes it helps if you lighten or darken your photo before starting your transfer.
Experiment with different transfer settings. If you are new to transferring, check the video here.
If you're still not getting good transfers after playing with the above settings, you may need to re-take the photo or edit the photo in a professional photo editor.
It's easy to insert and remove entire rows or columns from anywhere in your pattern.
There's an instructional video that will show you how to do it here.
BeadTool stores user-specific metadata inside every pattern, palette and layout you save. By default, this information is the same as your registration name and email.
However, you can change the information that gets saved by
Now every time you save a pattern, palette or layout, that new information will be saved with the file.
Note: You will need to go back and re-save each file that you want the new information to be included in.
It is not possible to convert a PDF that contains a pattern into a viable pattern through BeadTool's transfer functions. No software can create a copy of a copy with any amount of accuracy.
If you have a PDF of a pattern that you would like to copy, you would be better off contacting the author of that pattern and asking for a revision.
If you are the author of that PDF and want to get it into BeadTool, your best bet would be to extract the image from the PDF, load that image into BeadTool and hand-trace it.
I could write a book on the subject! Here are the most common reasons your pattern ends up a different size than what BeadTool calculates
Bead sizes are not as uniform as you think
No matter what the bead manufacturer boasts, no bead is uniform. Every-single bead I have ever measured with a digital caliper is a different size than the one before it. Each size difference adds up so the larger your pattern, the larger the inconsistency between BeadTool and the stitched pattern.
You changed bead sizes
BeadTool calculates the size of your pattern based on the first bead you add to your pattern. So if you accidentally add a Size 10/0 bead onto your new pattern and then design the rest of your pattern using 11/0 beads, BeadTool will still calculate the size based on that first 10/0 bead you added. The only way to get BeadTool to recalculate the pattern size is to click the New button or click Pattern->Transpose.
Rows are not columns and columns are not rows
Seed beads are always taller than they are wide. So when you set the dimensions of your pattern, you must take care to set the rows according to the vertical pattern size (height) and the columns to the horizontal pattern size (width). Switching them will give you inaccurate pattern measurements.
United States copyright laws are very clear on this: As soon as you create a work, it is considered copyrighted and nobody can tell you what you're allowed to do with it.
In other words you have the legal right to sell anything you create no matter what software you used to create it with.
Examples of legitimate works
These types of work are protected under US copyright law
However, derivative works are a different story and you should think carefully before selling something you did not create entirely on your own.
Unless the author of a prior work gives you permission to copy, it's considered copyright infringement:
By default, BeadTool does not show the center markers in your pattern but you can change your settings to show them.
Most likely you're asking this question because you're clicking File->Import->Single file. The File->Import functions are for importing native BeadTool files into your Library such as bead patterns, palettes and layouts.
To load a picture for transferring, click the Picture button on the main toolbar or click Picture->Open on the main menu.
BeadTool 4 supports the following stitches:
Word charts are generated for all stitches except Right Angle Weave
A shaped pattern in BeadTool is called Freeform. Although cells in a pattern will always exist, you can hide them.
If you have extra space on any side of your pattern, it's a good idea to trim it before enabling the Freeform option.
If the size of the beads are too small on your screen and it's making things difficult to design, there's a couple ways to increase the size of them.
If that's not good enough, you can change the base size for all beads
You can't delete or remove the the picture but you can hide it. Just click the big Picture icon on the toolbar to toggle the picture's visibility.
The reason the column and row modifier controls are disabled (greyed out) is because you've put the pattern into Freeform mode. While the pattern is in Freeform mode, you will not be able to modify the columns or rows.
To modify the columns or rows, just uncheck Pattern->Freeform in BeadTool's main menu.
That's something you should be asking your vendor. I have no control over what vendors choose to stock.
The answer to that question depends on what you're doing. Do you want to enlarge what's printed or enlarge what you see on your screen? I have an answer for both!
Enlarging the printout
BeadTool uses a templating system called Layouts for printing. Templates can be created and customized in many ways. BeadTool has some built-in Layouts for you to use, too. To learn more about layouts, please watch this video.
Enlarging the beads on your screen
There are a couple of ways to do this depending on what your needs are. The obvious way is to click on the Zoom button on the toolbar.
Another way is to edit the actual pixel width/height of each bead in your Options. To do that just:
Sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate similar colors in your pattern. To help with this, you can highlight any bead you want. There are two ways to do this:
If you would like to change the palette that your pattern uses, you can use the Transpose feature.
This action cannot be undone!
Stamps let you save smaller parts of one pattern so that you may reuse them in different ones. There's a video about stamps here.
If you've watched the video already and still find that you can't save any stamps, it's because you're clicking the Save menu item under the File menu instead of the Save button under the Edit menu.
Click that big New button on the toolbar or click File->New from the main menu.
You can perform contextual clicks on your Mac by clicking your mouse button while holding down the Control key on your keyboard.
Note: Apple likes to do their own thing so they don't include standard mice with their computers. However, you can use any 3-button mouse on a Mac.
You can remove all occurrences of any bead in your pattern by