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How to bring your marks over from another tracker or a paper chart

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Your chart is already under way: the marks are in another app, or coloured in with a highlighter on a printout. You'd rather not switch to a new tracker and mark everything again. In Crossette you can bring your marks over from a picture: a screenshot of another app or a photo of the page. Here's how it works and what the app asks you itself.

What you need

  • The same chart in Crossette. The marks go onto a chart that's already open in the app. For now Crossette opens OXS files; PDFs and scans don't open in the beta. For what OXS is, see "What is an OXS file".
  • A picture with marks. Either of these works:
    • A screenshot of the chart in another app. Zoom in so the squares are large: if they're too small, the app asks for a larger screenshot.
    • A photo of the page, with the stitched squares coloured in with a highlighter.
  • Big chart that doesn't fit in one screenshot? Take several: you can choose them all at once.

How to photograph the page

  • Shoot in even daylight, with no glare from a lamp and no shadow from the phone.
  • Hold the phone above the page. A slight tilt is fine, but the whole grid should be in the frame.
  • Take needles, clips and magnetic boards off the page: they hide the squares underneath.
  • If the page is large, photograph it in parts, like screenshots.

Step by step

  1. Open the chart in Crossette, tap the sliders icon ("View settings"), and under "Marks" choose "Bring over from another app".
  2. "Choose pictures" — pick a screenshot or a photo, or several at once.
  3. Put the corners on the corners of the grid in the picture and tap "Next".
  4. The app looks for where the picture is on the chart: "Found this picture's place on the chart. Check the column and row." If the place isn't found, enter the column and row of the picture's first square. For finding a square's number by the rulers, see "How not to get lost in a big chart".
  5. Tap any marked square in the picture. This tells the app what colour you mark with.
  6. Check: "Squares in solid frames will be marked as stitched; dashed frames are unsure." Tap a square to add or remove it.
  7. Tap "Mark … stitches". All the squares are marked in one action, and you can undo it.

What the app asks you itself

A picture isn't a file: a photo can have a shadow, a screenshot a see-through highlight. So where the app isn't sure, it doesn't decide for you — it asks.

  • Doubtful squares. If a square is close to the colour of the mark but the app can't tell, it says: "… squares (dashed frames) are the colour of the mark — tap them if they are marked". Look at them and tap the ones that are marked.
  • All squares look the same. If the picture shows no difference between squares, the app asks: "Is everything marked, or nothing?"
  • The place on the chart. The app suggests the column and row, and you check them.
  • The size of a narrow picture. On a narrow picture it's easy to be off by one square in how many squares it has. The app asks you to check the size; fix it with "Change size".
  • Several pictures. For each picture you see whether its place was found and how many squares are marked. If a square shows on two pictures but is marked on only one, it counts as stitched.

If the page has several highlighters

Many stitchers colour in what they've stitched with highlighters of different colours, one colour per thread. One tap teaches the app one colour — the colour of the square you tapped. To add the next one:

  1. Tap "Add a colour".
  2. Tap a square of the next colour. The squares found are added to those read before.
  3. Repeat for each colour. The line "Mark colours: …" shows how many are counted so far.

If you added the wrong colour, "Undo colour" removes the last one. When all the colours are in, tap "Mark … stitches".

After the transfer

Check the chart: the stitched squares should be in their places and the percentage stitched should go up. If something landed in the wrong place, undo the transfer and try again with a different column and row. From then on, mark in the app: in Crossette every mark is saved straight away. For keeping your progress safe in future, see "How not to lose your cross stitch progress".

About the author

This article was written by the Crossette team. We're building Crossette, a cross stitch tracker for iPhone and iPad. It's in development; to join the beta, see the Beta page.