The Scottish Register of Tartans

28 March 2024
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While you can search the Register without having to register and login, you will need to create an account to:

-Register new tartan designs
-Request threadcount information
-Receive notification of all new registered tartan designs and other news updates
-Manage your account details
-Request official amendments
  
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Search the Register and compare new designs

Quick tartan search
If you know the name of the tartan for which you are searching, you can use the 'quick tartan search' box at the top right of the page. Please note that the quick tartan search looks for exact matches for a text string, including punctuation.

A-Z search
You may wish to allow for variant spellings of the tartan name by browsing the A-Z index. Click on the A-Z link and select the appropriate letter of the alphabet to see a complete list of all tartans included on the Register beginning with that letter. Click on a tartan name to access further information about any particular tartan on the list.

If you are trying to identify a tartan by its colours, find tartans created by a particular designer or in a particular category, you should use the 'search the register' page. The various search options are detailed below.

You can also compare a new design to all the others on the Register by using the 'compare designs' page. Please see the detailed instructions below.

Search the Register
Compare designs

Search the Register
You can search the Register in various ways, entering information into the various fields

General search:

Tartan name Searches for a matching string of letters within any tartan name
Category Searches for all tartans within that category; can be qualified by using other search fields
Reference Searches for the Scottish Register of Tartans reference number. Please note that this is not necessarily the same as the STA or the STWR reference number
Designer Searches for a matching string of letters
STA reference Searches for a reference applied by the Scottish Tartans Authority (STA)
STWR reference Searches for a reference applied by the Scottish Tartans World Register (STWR)
Keywords Searches for a matching string of letters in any field

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Advanced search:

Registration date Search for tartans registered between the dates submitted
Registration notes Searches for a matching string of letters in the registration notes field
Restricted Select 'yes' to search restricted tartans, 'no' to search tartans for which no restrictions are currently recorded
Restrictions Searches for a matching string of letters in any of the restriction fields

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Colour Search:

Colours Limit the colours to be searched to those selected. You may also choose the order of the colours by checking the box
Exclude colours You may totally exclude certain colours from your search. Alternatively you may choose to exclude certain colours in a certain order by checking the box eg. exclude red, green, blue but not green, blue red

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Compare designs
This facility allows you to create an image of your proposed design and to compare it against the tartans already recorded on the Register.

Please note the required formats for both pallet and threadcount. For further information on the format of a threadcount please refer to the section on Threadcounts.

Once you have entered the required details, click on the 'Generate Tartan' button to create the image.

You may then choose to click the 'Find similar tartans' button to compare your design against recorded tartans. The system will search the contents of the Register and draw out the tartans which share the general colour scheme of your proposed design.

Alternatively, you can use the 'Search the Register' facility to check your tartan.

Please note that it is very difficult to 'teach' a computer how to identify tartans which are too similar to each other. Therefore, although we encourage you to use the 'compare designs' facility before submitting the application to register your tartan, we may still find that your design is not 'sufficiently different' to all others already recorded when processing your application.

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