By hand

Copy pixel art onto a grid by hand

To copy a pixel image by hand, export the large PNG with Apply grid checked, and copy one row at a time from that file. The number of cells is the meta line in the tool, not the width your photo viewer shows.

A large export of a 40×30 grid might be 640×480 pixels, because each cell was drawn 16 pixels across, plus the lines. If you count pixels in the file, you'll think the drawing is 640 wide and you'll be wrong for the entire afternoon. Write "40 × 30" on the paper before you start. The export guide is the reason this trap exists. The large file is a view. The small file is the art. For hand copying, the view is what you want, as long as you remember it's a view.

Set the grid up so a human can use it

On the converter, check Apply grid and pick a line color that survives the art. White lines vanish on a pale sky. Black lines vanish on an outline. A mid gray or a bright color you don't use in the palette is easier. The lines are drawn in the large PNG only. They don't change the small PNG, and they don't change stitch counts.

Print at 100%, or view at a zoom where one cell is at least a fingernail. If the print dialog "fit to page" shrinks a 80-wide grid until the lines merge, print two halves or lower the width and reconvert. A grid you can't see isn't a reference. Screenshotting the screen and printing the screenshot adds the browser chrome and a second resampling. Use the file from Large PNG.

Copy rows, not regions

Pick the top row. Place or draw every cell in it. Mark the row done. Then the next. Jumping around to "do all the reds" works for beads if you sorted bowls, and it fails for pencil, because you lose the x position. For a 40-wide row, tick every 10 cells on the paper. The same advice is on the symbol chart page, and the reason is identical: a one-cell shift persists to the end of the row.

If the job is stitching or beading, skip the color-only PNG and print the symbol chart from those tools. Matching a hex by eye under yellow kitchen lights is how blues drift. Letters don't drift. If the job is a block build, the block grid page adds the materials warning: the legend count is blocks only if you place one block per cell.

When the copy doesn't match

Hold the paper next to the screen and compare row 1 before you finish row 10. A wrong row 1 means every later row was placed against a lie. Fix it now. If the screen and the large PNG disagree, you moved a slider after exporting. The export is the document. Either redo the export or stop moving sliders. Paint edits that you liked are in the file only if you exported after painting.

Keep the small PNG too, in case you need to regenerate the large view later without the photo. Re-uploading the large PNG into the converter is the failure described in the export guide. Re-upload the small PNG if you must. It's already one pixel per cell, so a width equal to its pixel width reproduces it. A 40-pixel-wide small PNG, run at width 40, is the same grid again, grid lines not included until you export large.

Mark every tenth column on the printout before you begin, even if the file already has grid lines. Lines help the eye and still fail when you're tired. A tick at columns 10, 20, and 30 takes a minute and saves a shifted row. If you're copying onto graph paper, one square per cell, don't skip a square to "make it fit." Change the paper or lower the width and export a new large PNG. A 40-cell drawing forced onto 36 squares is a different drawing, and you'll not notice until the outline no longer closes.

When hand copy is slower than symbols

Switch to cross-stitch or bead charts when you need floss ids, bead codes, or shopping counts. Color-only large PNGs suit block builds and graph paper, not aisle shopping.

Hand copy checklist

Store the large PNG filename with the cell count in the name, like large-40x30-grid.png, so you don't open the wrong zoomed file months later when the small PNG is the one you need for a re-import.

Questions

Keep going

• Converter
• Why the large PNG exists
• Block builds
• Symbol chart for stitching

Updated 30 September 2026