Wish I could dear, I use pes also and have had my machine since Christmas and am driving all the cuties crazy with my confusion. Good luck to you!

I do not usually D/L sew. I use pes & hus, but my computer balks at hus, so I usually just do pes. Hope someone comes along that can help you, but I can give you both a flower!!! Hugs, Judy

I 'believe' that sew formats are limited to a certain number of stitches..therefore any design that exceeds that certain amount needs to be broken down into a series of designs...that is why you will see the outline for instance in a seperate design file from the basic design it goes with. That is my understanding...if I'm wrong I hope someone comes along to correct me. Rita

i have a old Janome and it uses SEW format, with sew you can only have 12 color changes. So if the design has more then that, it will break it up into 2 files that you have to download. If you're machine uses pes, you should down load pes. If you want a design that is in the sew format, you can down load it and reformat it to pes. But there are different sizes of pes , so you have to sometimes resize the sew design to fit your hoop. I hope this helps you.
hugs Lee

The design could be a spit design where the design is to big for that format and the person that design it may of made it a spit design .

See you've already gotten an answer and someof us learned a little more too. Have a blessed day.