Cross stitch text generator

Type the words, pick a font, set the size, and the preview shows them stitched, square by square, with the finished size on your fabric. It uses the same fonts and the same size controls as the Stitchmate editor, so what you make here opens there unchanged.

How to chart a name or a word

1. Type the text. Each line you type is a line of lettering, and Line spacing sets the gap between them.
2. Pick a font. The list shows each font in its own style, grouped the way stitchers use them: small pixel alphabets, fonts, and backstitch.
3. Set the size. Pixel alphabets grow by whole steps (×1, ×2, ×3); every other font by its height in squares. Drag the preview, or hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows) and scroll, to look around; zoom with ⌘ + and ⌘ −, or a pinch, and ⌘ 0 to fit it back.
4. Choose the colors. Pick a color scheme (Sampler, Varsity, Christmas, Chalkboard and more) and the lettering, border, outline and shadow all follow. Any one color can be changed from the scheme's threads, or from the full DMC chart with More DMC colors….
5. Take it with you. Download the PDF chart, print the free A–Z sheet for that font, or open this pattern in the editor.

Pixel alphabets, fonts, or backstitch

• Small alphabets are drawn square by square, so they stay crisp at any size and read from 5 squares tall. They can only grow by whole steps, which is why a name may jump from 7 to 14 squares tall.
• Fonts are typefaces turned into squares. They size to any height, but need room: serif and sans faces read from about 12 squares tall, script from about 22.
• Backstitch alphabets are single lines stitched along the grid. They are the answer to small script, reading from about 18 squares, and they leave the squares under them free for a background.

How big will the lettering be?

Each square is one stitch, so the finished size is the number of squares divided by the fabric count.

The caption under the preview gives the exact size of your lettering. For the fabric to buy around it, use the fabric calculator.

A free cross stitch alphabet sheet for any font

This is also the cross stitch alphabet generator: choose Free A–Z sheet in this font to print the whole alphabet, capitals and lower case, numbers and common marks, in the font and size you picked (with your Outline or Shadow, if you chose one), each letter set apart so it can be copied on its own, on a counted grid with heavier lines every 10 squares. It is the sheet to copy letters from when you chart a name by hand. The cross stitch fonts guide compares the alphabets side by side.

Keep working on it in the editor

Choose Open this pattern in Editor and the lettering becomes a pattern you can keep building in the pattern maker: each line is still text you can retype, resize or recolor, so you can add a motif, a second color or a full border around it. The letters and names guide covers centering by hand, if you would rather count it out.