EQ8 Upgrade
 

I have EQ7 and with the current promotion to upgrade to EQ8 I'm tempted to upgrade. However, I have had EQ7 for a couple of years and have yet to build a quilt on it beyond the tutorials as I find it a bit difficult to work with. Seems EQ8's changes are supposed to have made it easier to learn and use. Has anyone gotten so far as to trying it that can give me an opinion on how much easier or not it is? Does it come with a built in User manual or anything in the software?
Thanks in advance!

Kari Schell has beta tested EQ8. Here is her website and review: https://www.onpointquilter.com/blog/...2ce60-10860317

I plan to upgrade later this month.

Similar thread here

https://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f...t-t292209.html

I've used EQ7 since released. Love It! I'm finding EQ8 not user friendly, the new features aren't really that great. I would have rather had the cutting charts the QuiltPro offers. QuiltPro tells you how many strips to cut and how many pieces you can get from them. EQ8 new cutting feature is how many fat quarters you'll need but not how to cut them, it will also tell you name of fabric on the print out....useless and a waste of ink in my opinion. Like most quilters I can tell you exactly what line, the designer, the manufacturer and the year it was released.

EQ8 comes with a manual you can print or you can buy one at the end of November. Maybe I'm just getting old and set in my ways. I feel they should have left the overall design alone and added the new features, the new layout is making it very hard for me to find anything. Since you find the EQ7 hard to work with you might like the new layout.

This is why I'm selling my EQ7, I don't use it. It was one of those things that was an impulse buy that I planned on using but didn't. There's no sense in upgrading or keeping it when I don't and haven't used it. I'm slowly going thru all of my stuff that I wanted so badly but haven't used, like the quilting calculator, the FW machine, etc. I'm trying to be more careful and now if I'm buying it I'm making myself use it. I've heard the upgrade isn't that much, which is good, if you are going to use it.

I'm not sure I could count on her opinion on this as she is not unbiased. However, having a look at her site reminded me of her offering a learning program for EQ7 which seems she has adjusted to EQ8 now that it's out. I'm interested in knowing if anyone has tried her 10 minutes/3 days a week program lessons and what the feedback is. $30/month seems a little pricey, but if it got me to where I can be successful in getting what I want out of EQ8, it might be worth it. Comments?

But Sheri.a, it's 25% off right now!

Krafty14, fortunately I signed up for an EQ7 class at the Houston Festival. Right before I was about to purchase the upgrade, I saw that EQ will be giving their class attendees a free upgrade to EQ8. Their classes will still be in EQ7 since that is what people signed up for (signup started in July).

It's an unexpected treat. All but one class was full when they closed the pre-enrollment.

Interesting, I didn't realize there was an upgrade available.

I'd want to see point-by-point comparisons before I decide to change mine. I do use EQ7 fairly often, but it's frustrating for me to design on it - I still do most of my creative design work on graph paper and only move to EQ when I'm at or very near the final design. If the new version has better design tools, I might be interested. I really mostly use EQ as a place to archive my designs, get fabric estimates, and to print them out for doodling quilting ideas.

I wonder if they offer a trial download of the new version.

I upgraded to EQ8....It does not seem as "natural" to me as EQ7. I thought that if it was "newer" it would be easier...could be me...but EQ8 seems to be more difficult!

I'm finding the exact opposite - but I never got very good with EQ7, it seemed like very little was "logical" to me.

I'm an accountant by trade and use a lot of different software that is numbers based - can't figure out WORD to save my soul though.

I love my EQ7, and after checking out the new features of EQ8 don't see anything I would need. The new interface (if that's the correct word) really doesn't appeal to me at all. No, I will not be upgrading.

I'm still using EQ6, drew up a quilt yesterday. It works great, better than my printer. Why would I pay the price for EQ8?

WORD is a special variety of evil, though. I have used it nearly daily for something like 20 years and it still does crazy things I can't understand the rhyme or reason for. And as soon as I figure something out, they change it on me! Excel does weird stuff sometimes too but I find it to be a lot more civilized than WORD.

I'm still learning EQ6, lol.

Maceybaby, I also think EQ7 is difficult to use. Apparently, whoever designed it does not think the same way I do!

:DHow could that possibly happen?

EQ7 is not as flexible as I think it needs to be. I could be wrong about this, but after several years of use, I have concluded that EQ7 does not seem to allow me to make a standalone square, triangle, rectangle that can be used when creating a new block. That truly annoys me. It's like giving me all the tools to paint, but forgetting that I need canvas (or something) to paint on.

I wrote system requirements for a living...so have a pretty good idea of how to organize software and keep it both friendly and consistent. However, I do use EQ7 and have been grateful for it when creating several quilts from it.

I upgraded to the EQ8 a few days ago so there are lots of things that I haven't tried yet but I never would have guessed that anyone would find it more difficult to use. Everything I have wanted to use so far has been easier to find and it was similar enough to EQ7 that I haven't even opened the manual yet.
There is a manual to download with it and it has lessons and video tutorials just like 7 had.
I think that the functions in 8 are easier to find (not so much hidden in buried menus) and everything seems to have wonderful little help boxes and menus that tell you about more things that you can do. I think that would have made it easier for me to learn than 7 was.
I have designed a few blocks, a few quilts using the available design layouts and a simple layout for some scrappy placemats that i made. I started to explore a quilt design using a photo of some scenery and I played around with some embroidery placements just to see what was there.
If it is easier for you to use or not would really depend on what you thought was difficult about 7 but so far I am very happy with the my EQ8.

I have EQ7 and decided not to upgrade. I am still learning EQ7 and really dont want to try and learn it all over again. I upgraded once before on a different software item and found it way worse to use so I'm a little gun shy. I already have my EQ7 manual printed out and purchased some EQ7 workbooks just recently so I decided to stick with what I have.