4D/5D vs Floriani Software

sewingzfun

I have 4D Pro. I am thinking about upgrading to 5D when it is released. My dilemma is this. When I spoke to my sewing store about the upgrade, they informed me that it was a better deal to get Floriani Software. I am wondering if anyone has used both and if you can tell me how Floriani Software compares to 4D - or is there another digitizing software around the same price range that would be better than either of these?

Thanks.

garagewear

I am not sure what 4D or 5D are however I have had both the Toyota software and Wings / Drawings for corel. The Floriani is hands down the easiest I have ever used. If you purchase the entire suite either 2009 or the new Total Control you get a free weekend of training with Walt Floriani as well. I have the 2009 suite. I recently had them send me a comparison of the 2009 suite vs the Total Control and I am still looking through it to determine if i need to move up. The 2009 suite is very robust and has a lot of features not found in some of the other programs. One of those is what is called save to sew. You can take a manual, auto or purchased digitized design and run the save to sew function and it will add correction where things may have been scaled or been sloppy. The entire system is build around Walt Floriani's manual methods of digitizing and in his training he even talks through those methods before getting into the software. For the money I was impressed.

evego

Just saw your post. I've used Brother PE-Design, Pfaff 3D/4D, and now Floriani Embroidery Suite Pro. Floriani is easier by far. First and foremost, you do all your work in one window rather than in separate windows for separate programs/editing/inputting. Secondly, you work with shapes rather than points to edit your work. It's chock full of features and updates are free.

As to Floriani Total Control, the only real difference between that and the Pro is that FTC allows you to do chenille and sequins, but obviously you must have a machine/attachments that can embroider that work. It also will do embossing lines (and FESP doesn't), but it doesn't seem worthwhile to purchase a whole new program for that one feature. Floriani has promised an update to FESP at the end of October 2010 and hopefully that will include embossing lines.