Hi Nancy! Very important question, thank you. When you open Tool Shed, the manual is available from the very first screen you see:

In the lower right corner is the question mark icon. You can click that to get to the manual.
Another way to reach it is in this folder on your computer. C:/ProgramData/G7Solutions/EmbroideryToolShed/Manual/ETSManual_English.pdf

On your second question, I have some help for you, but I will post a little disclaimer here: I don't have a Mac and haven't tested this out myself:

How Do You Double Click on a Mac Without a Mouse?

There's no need to plug a mouse into your Mac to use double click. Instead, the Mac trackpad can do the job for you, as demonstrated above. It's also possible to learn keyboard shortcuts and even create your own to avoid using the mouse as much. Here's how to enable mouse keys via your keyboard.

1. On your keyboard, either tap Command + Option + F5 or tap the touch ID button three times.
2. Press the tab key repeatedly to move to Mouse Keys.
3. Tap space when you're on it.
4. Press 5 twice to double click, with surrounding keys working as other mouse actions.
5. Disable Mouse Keys by either triple tapping the Touch ID button again or by tapping Command + Option + F5.

These instructions come from: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-double-click-on-a-...

Hi Kathryn, to add a new letter to the first one, you can use the Merge feature. When you have your first letter open in the program, go to the file menu and choose "merge" from the options that are listed below "file" when you click on "file". Merge will open a folder where you might have designs. It will probably be the same one you got the first letter from, so then you can find your next letter and merge it in with the first. Repeat this process for as many letters as you have.

I'm here to correct what I said earlier. There isn't a merge feature in the free Embroidery Tool Shed software. You can copy your items from one grid into another though, so if you bring one letter up on one grid, and another letter in another, you can copy one of them, use the tab at the bottom to switch from one grid to another, and then paste it it into the other grid.
But I just learned a quicker way to add designs to one grid in Ashley's latest Software Success video:

https://www.embroidery.com/event?eventID=2179&even...
At about 10 minutes in, she shows to ways to locate and copy design files into the same screen with each other.

Hi Pamela,

I'm thinking perhaps you are not actually saving your file to USB. The default saving location is c: drive, which is not the USB drive.

Hi Linda,

Yes, you can! Here's how:

In the video, the user chooses the c:\ drive. To send to a stick instead, you would choose your inserted USB drive instead. In the video, her USB is labeled "Kingston E:" and it's near the bottom of the window.

Hi Hanneliza, you might try this question on our general embroidery forum, or in the Bernette Deco 500 page. https://www.embroidery.com/Bernina-Deco-500?efid=1...

Cards for this machine are not being produced, and are now considered vintage. People who have the machine themselves are most likely to know where to buy the cards.

I did a web search with these terms: "card for bernette deco 500" and found that there are several available on sites like Etsy and Ebay. One seller is: https://www.etsy.com/shop/JestexCorner?ref=simple-...

If you're interested in a blank card and a writer box so you can write your downloaded designs onto a card for your machine, you might try the Ultimate Box/Card from Vikant. https://vikant-emb.com/

Hi Pat, Thanks for your question. You can unzip designs in the same fashion no matter which software you are using for embroidery.

When I have a zipped design, and I want to unzip it in order to open in software such as Tool Shed, I click the "Extract all" option and then extract it. Then I go into my Tool Shed software and choose "open" and find the folder that my newly unzipped design is in, and open it that way.

Hi Knitig,

Great question. The lessons are delivered daily, and they are in outline format, so I suggest you read each outline and decide from there whether to watch any videos or do any further reading for each day. Other than that, there isn't a way to skip ahead.

Any Mac users of Embroidery Tool Shed want to chime in? Please do :)

Hi April, I'm checking with Dime Embroidery Tool Shed Customer support on this, since I'm not conversant with how it is supposed to work on a Mac. I'll be in touch.

Hi Brenda, Yes! This program will let you do a lot. You will be able to open PES files and change their colors and print color stops. You can also rotate and mirror, and estimate how long the design will take to stitch. In the software, you can save your deisgns to USB and take that USB to your embroidery machine for stitching.

In order to use Tool Shed software, your laptop needs to meet the following requirements for either Windows or Mac (you can run it on either):

Windows Minimum System Requirements

• Windows 8 or newer
• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz)* or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

It can run on Macintosh, too.
Macintosh Minimum System Requirements

• DIME’s Macintosh Key
• MacOS 10.10 – Yosemite (64 Bit)
• Processor 1.4 GHz Intel Core i5
• Memory 4 GB
• Hard Disk 500

Hi, Lynnette. We're sorry you're having trouble, but I think you are contacting the wrong company. Please check who your order was from and contact the company you ordered from directly. Best wishes,

~Heather
[email protected]

Hi, Carolyn. You can start at any time by click on the orange "Subscribe" button above. You'll get the lessons in your email a day at a time starting within 24 hours of subsribing. Thanks for the question.

~Heather
[email protected]

Hi Beverley,

The first thing I can think of is that you might be navigating to your designs outside of PEP, in which case unlesd you have Perfect Stitch Viewer also installed, the designs would not display as designs.

If you first open PEP and then use its File-Open feature, and you still see boxes, something else is at play.

In that scenario, if your designs in ART format, they might not display, or if your window preference is set to details, list view, or tiny icons, that could be another reason they aren't displaying, and that can be fixed.

Hi Jane, I would also consider Tool Shed to be a starter software, to which you can add on. The thing that really separates it from a demo is that you can not only usr its feature, but you can aldo save in it, and there isn't an expiration to your use. Yet it does have some demo features. For example, you can within Tool Shed run demos of other software, to see if they are s good fit for your goals Embroidery goals.

Hi Jane, you could call it "Starter" embroidery sotware because it has the basic features that every machine embroiderer uses and more. Some of the features are: Read and write popular formats, Resize designs, Cut, Copy, Paste,Rotate and Mirror, Re-colorize designs, Print templates, color sequencing, thread color conversion between brands, Design Analyzer, Stitch Sequence Simulator. I wouldn't consider it a demo because the features are very useful and do not expire. There's also some very powerful add-ons that can be purchased. Here's more information on the add-ons.