When looking at black and white patterns...

[Crimson Star]

I actually cannot work with just a black and white pattern. I HAVE to go over the entire pattern and outline all the different colours. I've started to do this with a somewhat complex 36 colour pattern (135x180) and good heavens, I haven't done more than 1/5 of it so far and I want to start stitching already

I wish there were more sections of about 500 squares of the same colour. It'd be so much faster.

[icedragonj]

Are you able to print the pattern in colour? If you have access to the pattern file itself instead of just a pdf, should be easy enough to do. For complex patterns having it in colour definitely helps a lot.

[Lalina]

This is a very late response, but I thought I would add my two cents anyway.

When I am dealing with a large black and white pattern, sometimes I will highlight all of the instances of one symbol on a page in yellow. After I've finished stitching it I will go over the same symbol again but with an orange highlighter. Then I will move onto the next symbol and repeat the process.

I like this method because I don't have to do a lot of prep work before I start to stitch a bit. I dislike it because it restricts me to only stitching with one colour at a time.

[Sheepish]

I have a few different colored markers that I'll tag a few symbols with, then as I stitch them I mark them out with a black marker. I really helps me keep my place.

[jocy666]

Have you tried to print the pattern and use colored pencils to paint symbols according with the thread color?