I love EQ7 and use it all the time. One of the best things about it is the support from the company. Any time I've had questions doing something they respond quickly and clearly and stick with me until I get it working the way I need it. A great product and company!

It is a great program..I have an older version, as I don't sit at the computer and "design"......my projects are copies of something I've seen in book or magazine or online ...with instruction...so no need to do that. Actually the only time I use it is if I'm not sure about amt of fab needed...so I'll go thru the motions of "creating"...just put on whatever fab bits the program has..then print out fab needed info.....and even that I do very seldom.......

Printer/scanner combinations are really cheap. My old printer/scanner died and I went to office depot. I didn't shop around as this was for the office and I needed it now, and only paid about $250 for one. There were some that were much cheaper and perfect for home use. I always buy HP. They are a bit more when you buy them but the print cartridges are half what Lexmark's are so I figure that over the years, I come out ahead with the HP. Plus they work well with my HP computers and there's lots of online support if you have problems.

I use EQ7 all the time and love it. I take pictures (jpg) of my fabrics and import them into the program. Works like a charm! EQ mini will not allow you to import your own scans or pics, but you can import the EQ provided extra fabrics, or some manufacturer's (fab) files

I have a version of EQ that I don't use. Seems like I spent a lot of time on the computer designing a quilt, but when I go the the quilt shop, the fabric "speaks to me" and tells me what to do with it...and I dump the design I made with EQ. I suppose if you buy the fabric first you can scan it into EQ, but how do you know how much fabric to buy to begin with? I think if you are trying to do an original design or complex design, EQ would be a good support. But for my level of quilting, I really don't use it.

Hi Marcia,
I recently purchased EQ7, too.(Eleanor Burns site) and there is definately a learning curve, but with any program that offer so many entities it's worth doing the free tutorials. I printed my manual also.
I do best with classes I can watch, so I just signed up for an online class through their website. It is a forever class like the Craftsy ones, and you can ask questions to the teacher. Also, if u r a student, there is a facebook page the students can post their work and give/ recieve tips! With my embroidery software I could take classes forever before discovering all there is to know, so this is no where as complicated!

you can scan you fabrics in but lots of companies will let you do it from their site for free or you can use a generic one or just make each section a certain color, so no, you don't have to have a printer/scanner

I have EQ7 and love it. BTW Electric Quilt still has 25%off on EQ7 and EQ mini today. It can be downloaded and done in a matter of minutes. Good luck with your decision.

I have EQ7 & Quilt-Pro. I use Quilt-Pro all the time. The learning curve on Quilt-Pro is a lot quicker & easier.

No, you do not have to own a scanner.

There are a couple of different ways to import fabric images into EQ. You can take a picture of the fabric with your phone's camera and upload it to the program (EQ has instructions on how to do this). You can also download and import fabric images from the internet. I find this to be the easiest, because most of the time when I take a picture of fabric, I get a moire effect.

EQ and Moda both have free downloadable files full of fabrics, I'm sure there are other sites as well, I'm just not aware of them. You can also right-click and save ANY fabric photo, it does not have to be in the EQ, Moda, or any other collection. It simply has to be an image file of the particular fabric you want to use.