Managing Designs in Q-Matic

As we purchase and collect more and more designs for our BERNINA Q-matic Longarm Automated System, we need to stay organized. This blog post is about managing your designs. I will show you how to create tags for your designs, and to add tags to designs as you import and after they have been imported. I will also show you how to delete unwanted designs. So let’s get started.

Importing Designs:
When you purchase a design, a collection of designs or create a design in Art & Stitch and you want to save them in your Q-matic library, you will click on “Design Library” from the Menu Bar at the top of your screen and then select “Import Design”.

When the secondary window opens, you will see four columns. The first column is “Explorer”. This is from your computer, and you will need to find the location of the folder where you saved the designs that you want to import. My files shown here are in Documents/Quilting designs/LA80202 Feather DESIGNS. When you select the file folder that your designs are in, you will see them listed in the second column call “Files”. All of my files are .bqm. If you had a file that was not .bqm, the words “Cant Import” will appear beside the file name.

When you see the files, select the ones you want to import. You can import a group of files, or you can import one at a time. If importing one at a time, select the file and then give it a quick double click so that you can see both the design in the “Design Preview” column and the file name under the “Importing” column. Or you can use the “Select All” at the bottom of the Files column. It will only select the files that can be imported. You will now see the names of the files in the bottom half of the third column call “Importing”. Next you will want to select the tags you want to associate with the designs. I selected “Amanda Murphy” for these specific designs because they are designs from one of her new collections created specifically for longarm at OESD #80202 Feather Quilting by Amanda Murphy. I also selected two additional tags: “Denise’s Imports” and “Feathers”. (Click HERE if you would like to view all of Amanda’s longarm design collections.)

When all of the tags are checked and all of the designs you want to import are selected, you will now click on “Import” at the bottom of column three. In the “File” column, it now tells you that all of the files have been imported to the library.

Use “Close” on the bottom right corner of the screen to close the window. You now can find these designs in your “Design Pool” when you click on the tool to add designs to your “Design Center”.

Manage Tags:
This is where you can add a tag or create a tag. You can also modify or edit a tag, and of course delete a tag if no longer needed.

To create a new tag, open the Design Library from the Menu Bar at the top of the screen.

Click on “Manage Tags”

When the secondary screen opens, click on the “Add” icon.

When the dialog box opens type in the name for your new tag. Click the checkmark in the green box to confirm the tag is correct.

It is now part of the list of tags that are available for you to use.

To modify a tag, select the tag on screen that you would like to modify. Now click on the “Modify” icon.

When the dialog box opens, correct or edit the name of the selected tag. Click the checkmark in the green box to confirm that the change is what you want.

If for any reason you may want to delete a tag, you would first select the tag. Now click the “Delete” icon.

The tag is now gone.

Be sure and use “Close” on the bottom right to save and close window.

Design Tags can be opened from “Design Library” in the Menu Bar also. This is where you can tag designs that have already been imported in the library.

Click on “Design Tags”.

When the secondary screen opens, you will see the Design Pool. Select the design/designs you wish to give a new tag name or another tag. Double click on the design and the design name will appear in the “Selected Design” column. Under the “Tags” column it will show you what tags the design/designs already have. Select the tag/tags you want to add and then at the bottom of the “Selected Design” column, click the “Add Tags” icon.

You will then need to click “OK” in the dialog box that opens and tells you that you have added tags to the number of designs selected.

You will see that I added a tag that I named AM Feather Quilting 80202. The AM is for Amanda Murphy, Feather Quilting is the name of the collection and 80202 is the OESD number for this collection. You can name your tags anything you want.

Use “Close” on the bottom right of screen to close the window and return back to the Q-matic screen.

Anything that you import will now be in your “Design Pool”. The designs are listed in alphabetical order or you can search for designs by tags as well as design file names.

Deleting a no longer needed design is very quick and easy. At the top of your screen you will find “File” in the Menu Bar. Click on “File” then click on “Delete” from the dropdown. Now click on “Delete Design File”.

A secondary window will open. Select the file you would like to delete. Click “Delete” at the bottom middle of screen.

It will ask you to confirm.

When you click “Yes”, the design is gone.