Barbara & Beverly, You can expect it to even more than double because instead of having two needle penetrations at points A and B, you're now inserting several stitch points between A and B on every original satin stitch. But just because your stitch count will be a "Bazillion" (exactly how many is a Bazillion?), it doesn't mean that your sew out time will be that high. The machine will sew at faster speeds during a fill stitch than it will sew satin stitches. So you can expect your sew out time to be higher but probably no more than double. This will all depend on the design and/or design size. You can reduce the number of stitches dramatically by increasing the stitch length in the fill properties tab. By increasing the length of the average stitch between points A and B, you will reduce the number of stitches possible of that length to be created between points A and B. Although some folks really like the way a tight fill stitch looks as opposed to a longer fill stitch after you remove the fabric from the hoop and see how the stitches move when flexing the fabric. I believe the default in Design Shop for Fill Stitch Length is 60. I usually set mine to something more like 35 or 40 for most fills. If you are really concerned about this, I suggest you practice first with different stitch lengths to see what the numbers really mean. As for your digitizer, is this person familiar with the power of Design Shop??? Probably not. In the past, software may not have been capable of what it can do today. Not even two years ago did Design shop have some of the neat features it has now. It's always changing and getting better. Don't worry yourself about bunching of the letters. The only thing you might notice right away is the "Push" factor when dealing with "Fills". This will be attributed to more stitches as opposed to fewer. Since physics tells us that no two physical things can occupy the same place in space or time, then when you insert a piece of embroidery thread between two threads in a piece of fabric, then naturally the two threads will push apart. Do this about a... , how did you call it, a Bazillion times and the overall design will look wider than you originally intended. That is why there is what's called "Push Compensation" (similar to Pull Compensation when dealing with columns). You may only notice issues with this when you have outlines or adjoining elements that are detail specific. Sure hope this helps. Ed Orantes Amaya, EMT & EMC Tech New Orleans, LA 504-258-6260 emservice@xxxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: amayausers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:amayausers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Avalon Embroidery Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2005 8:01 AM To: amayausers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [amayausers] converting sating stitches to fill stitches Hi All! I was wondering if someone could give me some info. on the following. I have a customer who needs to have some jackets done. (not nylon this time!) She wants text only on the back of the jacket done in a "western style". The larger letters are approx. an inch and a half tall. I just used one of the fonts that comes with design shop (not a true type font) I noticed that the stitch count more than doubled when I changed from satin to fill. The person that I use for digitizing looked at it and said that the larger letters have to be digitized. (and they are only 1 1/2" tall) He said that the fonts that are digitized as satin stitches will still follow that same pattern as a satin stitch when converted to fill causing the lettering to "bunch up" on the fabric when sewing out and it would cause endless thread breaks while sewing. (though I have changed satin to fill before for directors chair backs to 2" and it sewed out great, just with a bazillion stitches) Is this really the case? I was wondering if maybe I am just converting the satin to fill stitches incorrectly? I would just enter the font and then go into fill and change it from satin to fill. Is there a way to change and not have such a high stitch count? I certainly can understand an increase in stitches, but for it to more than double? Barbara Avalon Embroidery