What is a PXF file? The Pulse embroidery format

What is a PXF file?

PXF is the working file of the embroidery software made by Pulse Microsystems. For years it was sold as Tajima DG/ML by Pulse; Tajima Europe lists "Pulse Embroidery (PXF)" first among the formats Tajima DG16 reads and writes, and Tajima Software promotes PXF as its own format for the current DG17 release.

A PXF sits in the same role as a Wilcom EMB file: it is the editable master a digitizer saves while building a design, not the file a shop loads for a production run. A shop that digitizes in-house on this software keeps the PXF as the master and sends machine files to the floor.

What does a PXF file store?

Tajima Software describes PXF as a file that saves settings such as underlay, density, pull compensation and specialized commands, so you can pick the design up where you left off. It contrasts this with most other embroidery files, which keep only the location of each stitch. Because the settings travel with the file, anyone who opens the same PXF later sees the underlay, density and compensation values the original digitizer chose, rather than having to guess them from the stitches.

Pulse Microsystems, which develops the software, describes the PXF workflow as one design window with outlines and stitches. The object data is the valuable part, and it is proprietary, which is why generic viewers and free converters do not read PXF files.

Why does a PXF file resize better than a stitch file?

When you scale a stitch file such as a DST file, the software can only stretch or squeeze the existing stitches. The count stays the same, so an enlarged design goes thin and a reduced one goes dense and stiff.

A PXF keeps the outlines, so the software generates new stitches for the new size. Tajima Europe describes the DG16 outline processor this way: resize outline files and the stitch count is automatically adjusted. The same outline data lets a digitizer combine parts of stock designs, swap lettering or change a stitch type without starting from scratch.

Recalculated stitches still need a digitizer's eye. A design built for a 3 inch left chest does not become a good jacket back just because the outlines scale: details that worked small may need to be simplified or re-thought at the new size, and the reverse is true when shrinking. Tajima Software also offers stitch-to-outline conversion for stitch files that arrive without outlines, but that rebuilds objects from the stitches rather than recovering the digitizer's originals.

How do you open a PXF file?

PXF is a proprietary format. To open and edit one you need software from the Pulse family, such as Tajima DG/ML by Pulse or Tajima Software DG16 or DG17. Free tools do not read it: Ink/Stitch does not list PXF among the formats it can open, and our own free embroidery file converter reads DST, PES and EXP only.

If someone sent you a PXF and you do not run Pulse software, ask them to export the machine format your machine needs. It is a quick export in the software that made the file. Check the result in the free DST file viewer before you sew it.

How do you convert a PXF file to DST or PES?

Open the PXF in Pulse or Tajima Software and save or export it as a machine format. Tajima Europe lists Tajima DST, Tajima TBF and Tajima Condensed (TCF) among the formats DG16 writes, alongside many others. For Brother or Baby Lock machines, export a PES file.

Keep the PXF. Once the design exists only as a DST, the outlines and settings are gone, and every later size change or edit starts from stitches. If you need a design and do not run Pulse software, our embroidery digitizing service hand digitizes it and sends every machine format with each design. For which format your machine reads, see embroidery machines and their formats, and for how all the formats compare, the embroidery file formats guide.

Sources

• Tajima Software: PXF file format
• Tajima Software: DG17
• Pulse Microsystems: Tajima DG/ML by Pulse (.pxf, outlines and stitches)
• Tajima Europe: Tajima Software DG16 by Pulse (formats, outline processor, stitch to outline)
• Ink/Stitch: file formats (formats Ink/Stitch can read and write)

Sources checked 19 September 2026.