welcome to cute. you've got some good answers already so I just say: join the group!
A hearty welcome to you on this site. I see you got your answer but all I want to add is: no question is silly - it is only a learning curve and if not asked, how will you learn. A *4U. Annatjie
PC stitch software or your machine software maker may have that module.
I digitised a few cross stitch design using old charts from my stash. I used 3D Pro, the cross stitch module.
There are 2 ways, to let the software figure it out or do it manually, which often is the better choice.
Doing it by hand is fairly easy, you just copy the chart stitch by stitch. Having said that, cross stitch designs often have many colours to create shading and in ME that means many jumps or clever pathing. So you have to think carefully about stitch order and connection stitches.
I made a portrait of one of my GDs automatically - the programme did what I could not easily have done by hand.
In Designs by Cuties I uploaded a design I drew and digitised manually.
Not a silly question. They can be converted, but you do need software that will do this. Embird and Viking has a module that will do this, there is another program that you can buy also that you can manually place the stitches from a chart into the program. There is a learning curve with them, but yes it is possible.