Embird is great for combining letters. It is a little time consuming but it can be resized to fit your hoop. There are some great and free tutorials on the net to help you if you haven't tried this before. Work in the Editor screen and use Merge to bring all the letters you need to the screen. If you hold the control key, you can all the letters at one time. Good luck.

Here's one you might want to check out, Stitch Era Universal, SEU. It's a free program offered by Sierra. Up until a few weeks ago, you had to order from a vendor - the software was free but you had to pay for S&H or other things, usually around $15. But as of early Jan., in select countries you can now download for free, but there is no pdf manual, just onboard help files. There is a yahoo group for support. I've not had time to mess with it, but apparently it includes something similar to Embird font engine to turn truetype fonts into embroidery files. To use this software, you have to be connected to the web, and commercials run on the side. But I've read of some satisfied customers that are digitizing with it. You might want to check it out, and sign up for the Yahoo group as that is the only place to get support for the free version.

In Embird Editor you can open a new page, then use Merge to find your letters and make words. This is how you might add a word or phrase to a design, too. It's very easy.

Embroidery Font Plus is free, see link below.
Sorry to rush.
HNR, Meganne