How to make Text without DAK for brother electronic machines

Here is what you will need-
WinCrea (http://knittsings.com/free-stitch-design-software-for-hand-and-machine-knitting-win_crea/)
FB100 Emulator & FB100 Utility 
Brotherlink Cable
Brother electronic machine

WinCrea is a free software originally designed for the Passap machines, this is a stand alone program and does not need to be installed. This also works with all versions of windows.

FB100 Emulator and FB100 Utility come with the Brotherlink Cable, however if you lost your disk you can find the link above that you can download these programs. The FB100 Emulator allows you to upload and download to your knitting machine just like the FB100 disk drive. The FB100 Utility allows you to make tracks, look at the designs in each track etc.

WinCrea can be some what finicky about how the design is layed out (the number of background sts must be more than the fair isle color, will get into more detail. This is a very easy program to use once you know how to use it.

For those who know how to use Wincrea these instructions may be over kill, but I want to be thorough  The directions for each picture will be ABOVE each picture.

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CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM

1) Open WinCrea, click on 'File' and click on 'New'

2) Put in the number of stitches and rows you need, feel free to put in more than needed as we may need to add rows later anyway.

3) Go to 'View' and click on 'Zoom in' until the graph is large enough for you

4) Once you have your graph large enough, you will have what is shown below

5) I prefer to change the background to a color, you don't have too. If you would like to change the background go to the 'Flood Fill' icon, shown in purple below, find your color then click on your graph

6) Now we are ready to draw, the top two icons in the 'Tool' box will draw. The first one will allow you to draw 1 square at a  time, the 2nd one will allow you to draw lines- you can drag the line so you don't have to click each square. Pick your color and draw in your design. 

7) Our name isn't centered, so lets fix that now. You will see the purple box below is on the 'Selection Rectangle' after you have that selected you will click on the top left corner of what you want to select and drag the box to over what you want to move/copy. We can't actually 'move' the items so we have to copy and paste it. Once you have the selection box around what you want to copy hit - ctrl+c to copy.

8) Now we need to paste the item, hit - ctrl+v to paste, it won't paste it right now. Wincrea will give you another selection box that you can move around. Use this box to find the center, once you are happy with it just click to paste the item. It will overlap what is already there so we will need to clean that up.

9) Here is what it should look like after you have pasted the name down.

10) Now to clean up the remaining items that are not needed, if you can't remember which color you chose for the background you can click on the 'Colour Pick-Up' tab, the one in purple below and click on the background color. 

11) Click on one of the drawing tools, and color in the unnecessary color

12) Click on the 'Flood Fill' and click on the unnecessary color/text that you want to color in the background color

13) We now need to click on the 'Twist' option in the Tool box, and click on your graph and it will flip it for you. All items MUST be backwards, if you are doing a top down item you will also need to use the 'Flip' tool. You could cut down the sides so the name is the only thing shown, however WinCrea is picky about the number of fair isle stitches versus the number of background color. If your fair isle stitches are greater than the background, Wincrea will assume the fair isle stitches are the background color.

14) Now it is time to create a track and check that you have enough background stitches. You MUST plug in your Brotherlink cable. Open FB100 utility and click on 'No Port'

15) The only option you will have is '4. Edit', if you have a Brotherlink Cable 7 then you will get all of the options. The Brotherlink Cable 7 allows direct downloads from the FB100 disk drive to your computer.

16) Click on 'New'

17) You will need to create a track now- put anything you want it doesn't matter, then hit save

18) Click 'Add', then find your machine and click on that

19) I have the KH940, so you will see it under 'Mode'. Click on 'Track 1' to highlight it, then click 'Edit'

20) Now you need to add your files, you can open the folder where your pattern is and drag and drop or you can click the 'Add' button.

21) Click on your pattern to highlight it, then clock on 'Show', you will get a design box as shown below. I changed my colors the default colors are blue for background and red for the design color, mine is blue for background and white for the design. Now it is necessary to check your design before you download it to your knitting machine. If you don't have enough background color you will see it here and with my colors it would be white background and blue letters. Your machine will ONLY select the White stitches so it is important that your fair isle stitches are the ones your machine selects. If you need to add more columns I will discuss that below.

22) If everything looks great Click 'Close', click 'Close' again, click 'Save'. Now you have to get all the way out of FB100 Utility before you can open FB100 Emulator. Keep your cable plugged in.

23) Now open FB100 Emulator, and click on 'Emulate'

24) Click 'On'

25) Click 'Load' and select your track, click ok

26) You will now see your loaded track, now it is time to turn on the knitting machine, click CE, 551, STEP, 1, STEP , once it is finished your machine will beep, you can check how many patterns you downloaded by hitting STEP and you will see the last pattern loaded, so if you downloaded 19 patterns you will see 919. To close the program hit 'Eject', then 'Off', now you can click the little red x to close it out. 

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Uh-oh, I didn't add enough columns to my pattern how do I add more rows and keep my item center?

Click on 'Edit' and go to 'Insert Columns and Rows', Now add the amount of Columns you want to add. The Columns will be added on the Left side of the graph and will push everything over. If you added a background color you can use the 'Flood Fill' to fill in that area. You will then repeat steps 7-12 above, your items should already be flipped but if it is not then do step 13 as well. 

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and happy knitting!