Recipe Software

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Consul - If you're still playing around with Access, let me help. I actually did design my own recipe database a little while back. Frustration at everything out there being either too convoluted, or too simple. I used to be a database developer (oh yeah, back in the day, like 2002, ha ha ha), so this was a fun little side project. Let me know if you'd like for me to send the file so you can mess around a bit further?
 
I use the freeware version of Cooking Aficionado, available on download.com or limepeak.com ! The limepeak site has a demo so you can see it, but hey, the software is FREE! It is a simple program, that allows you to organize recipe by your own categories! It also emails recipes in a nice format, great for sharing!
 
I've used MasterCook (Cooking Light) for years. I've made separate cookbooks in just about every topic, i.e. poultry, pasta, etc. Rather than type each ingred on separate lines, I copy and paste (from Word) into the directions portion. You can also copy, paste the food pics. I love it, couldn't be without it.​
 
Cooking Aficionado

shannon in KS said:
I use the freeware version of Cooking Aficionado, available on download.com or limepeak.com ! The limepeak site has a demo so you can see it, but hey, the software is FREE! It is a simple program, that allows you to organize recipe by your own categories! It also emails recipes in a nice format, great for sharing!
Thank you for the tip Shannon of Cooking Aficionado!:)
I have been searching for a program to handle all these bits and scraps of paper I dare not lose. I have downloaded and tried near a dozen and found them all to be lacking somewhere. But, Cooking Aficionado I had not heard of.

I found NowyourCooking to be my best bet, if I had to go and pay for one.

But now, I can try one more first.

I just joined this Forum. Mostly to send you a thank you, but I think I will like it here.
Happy New Year!
 
Chatwon said:
Thank you for the tip Shannon of Cooking Aficionado!:)
I have been searching for a program to handle all these bits and scraps of paper I dare not lose. I have downloaded and tried near a dozen and found them all to be lacking somewhere. But, Cooking Aficionado I had not heard of.

I found NowyourCooking to be my best bet, if I had to go and pay for one.

But now, I can try one more first.

I just joined this Forum. Mostly to send you a thank you, but I think I will like it here.
Happy New Year!

Welcome to DC! And I surely hope you like Cooking Aficionodo!!!! It is easy to copy and paste recipes into! And you can make your own categories so you can organize your recipes as you wish! :chef:
 
Cooking Aficionado 3.1

Sharron of KS,
OK. I D/Led and tried Cooking Aficionado 3.1. And this is what I found.

Cooking Aficionado 3.1 (CAProSetup.exe) (from DownLoad.com)

+All program operations are surprisingly fast and smooth.
+This program is definatly for a user who wants the "Hands-On" approach to managing fewer than one hundred personal recipes. I did not try the "E-Mail" function.
-It comes with only one recipe, you must "Add" recipes as your first endevor.
Adding Recipes:
-Title: only 32 char allowed, all else is truncated, ie: Biscuit Mix (All Purpose Baking Mix)=
Biscuit Mix (All Purpose Baking
-Ingredients: the first word cannot be Ingredients, space; causes "Print Preview" to hang.
+Attractive, full-page "Add Recipes" form with separate form panes for Title, Ingredients, Prep, Notes and Category.
-Input recipes by using the clipboard, "Cut 'n Paste", or typing everything.
-There is no "Import" function.
-Be sure to click the "Add" button after Inputting your recipe or you will lose it.
+Export funtion works by manualy choosing recipes, (1 or more), from a selected Category and it is then exported into the new "XML" format. I think this format is good, forward thinking by the Author.
+There is a "View in Text mode" to allow clipboard copying a single recipe out of the program.
+The "Print Preview" shows an attractive printout. Printouts are "one" recipe per page.

In conclusion:
I think the single biggest improvment which could be made for the program, would be, by adding Import/Export functions using a choice of generic text, MealMaster format and MasterCook format.

All-in-all, this is a promising program and pleasureable to use, even with it being free.

CC: To the Aurthor
 
Mac Users

I used to use MasterCook but they stopped supporting us poor Mac people many years ago so I now use "TheRecipeManager". Their latest upgrade is coming out very soon. They are quite receptive to user's suggestions for changes/improvements. I am thrilled with their support!
 
Corinne said:
I used to use MasterCook but they stopped supporting us poor Mac people many years ago so I now use "TheRecipeManager".

I found The RecipeManager to be chock full of good stuff and certainly a better program than "SO" many of the other free ones. It was my previous favorite freebie before I joined here. We should rate RecipeManager high here, especially because it reaches to the Mac users.

.
 
A Free "Add-On" for you

Cogitum Co-Citer is a tool for creating the collections of texts from the Internet.

http://www.cogitum.com/

This free program is a really-neat help to "Grab" parts of a web page, saving in text form, such as a good looking recipe! It also saves the link so you can return to the page instantly when you want. It also will export your collection to a the HTML format.

I use it more and more.

---------------
I also use NetPicker2:
NetPicker allows you to select and save a portion of the web page by dragging it from your browser.
http://www.netpicker.net/

-----------------
I would be hard pressed to choose between them. Both are free and well-behaved programs.
So get one and spend less time collecting and more time trying out new stuff.:chef:
 
has anyone tried to use Filemaker Pro. I have it and might try this as a new project. If it works out ok I will get the compiler. what I like about FMP is that it will run under both PC and MAC and you can use the complier software on Two computers if you want one PC and one MAC that way you can do Run time programs for clients. But when you are programing the DB you can do it on both machines. I started with this as I have a PC at home and most of my Clients have Mac's. And most of my Clients were running FMP on thier MAC's so I picked it up for my PC and then called the company and they offer good support and advice and the program in under 500.00 and the complier and program are under 1200.00 not a bad price when you are talking about relationable DB's. and they have a cheaper product for the home user but if you have the complier the end user does not need to have FM on thier computer.
 
AdobeFX said:
I actually found these forums a couple weeks ago while searching for some software.

I've tried four of them and the one I like most is Big Oven at http://www.bigoven.com , each program has the pro's and con's, there's just seemed to be a good fit for me and is probaly why it's not free after 30 days.

Things about it I like:
1. Entering a recipe. It's just easier compared to some of the other programs I've tried.
2. Emailing recipes. There sent HTML style and also sent as an attachment.
3. Nutritional Facts. They put some time into this. I don't know how exact it really is but it anilyzes your ingrediant list calculates everything for you.
4. Calender Menu and shopping list. Just click and drag the recipe into either area and it automatically adds all the ingredients you'll need.

There is alot more stuff... I suggest giving it a try... I don't want to try and sell anyone on this, I just want people to know what I've found and like.

Hope you enjoy.

Another vote for BigOven here...we bought a year ago and then kinda stopped cooking, but I still use it now and again when I want to find a recipe for something new. There are more recipes than I ever thought there would be for it, and definitely more than I'll ever use, but it's a pretty good piece of software, so I'm impressed.

Everything's pretty intuitive and straightforward, plus when you can't find a recipe for something in your recipe boxes, it defaults to going straight to the website to find something in the huge database there.

It's really not bad, I think I paid about $40 for it and it's paid for itself already just by always having a conversion calculator at my fingertips!
 
I have two cookbooks I put together using word. I included an index of recipes and ingredients as well as a table of contents. it wasn't difficult just a bit time-consuming and I had my 2-inch thick instruction book on my lap until I really got started.
CooksHelper - Thanks for the website, I just had to sign up.
 
I shopped around for cooking software when I bought a new computer this year. To make a long story short "Living Cookbook" was the winner for me. When e-mailing recipes to friends, it creates them as an HTML file (same as a web page) that you can view from your e-mail or from your web browser. If you find a recipe on the internet that you want it is a breeze to enter it into the program. Printing a recipe, or menu is a one button operation. It shares cookbooks from many popular formats, and allows you to create individual cookbooks as a part the program. You may build a cookbook and export it to MS Word and print it out or share it that way. The help file is good, but the online support is excellent. I use WinXP and the program is very stable and has not crashed once, also the backup and restore feature works without a hitch.

I had tried shareware programs, and where they worked good to great, for a while, they always crashed and I lost all my work and, in one instance, over 100 recipes. Most of the purchased recipe packages were not horridly expensive, and for my money worth it.
 
Consul said:
Okay, the IT guy to the rescue, or not. :mrgreen:

I have MS Access, I know how to program it (for the most part), and I've been thinking about making myself a recipe database for some time. If several other people are interested in using such a project, it may persuade me to get off my rear end and get going.

As a start, what kind of features would you like?

Here's what I'm thinking:

  • Easily categorizable
  • Search by recipe name, ingredient, style, or category
  • Prepare formatted print-outs for book making (I like keeping recipes in a binder in the kitchen)
  • Menu preparation up to a week ahead, with shopping list generation
It would be some work, but it could be a lot of fun, too. I wouldn't mind gaining more experience with Access, either.

Also, if many of you don't have MS Access, there are other options I can use that are freely available (I'm an Open Source kind of guy).

Thoughts and opinions?


This one uses a access database from what i've heard. http://www.primasoft.com/Deluxeprg/reodx.htm
 
ArticKatt said:
has anyone tried to use Filemaker Pro. I have it and might try this as a new project. If it works out ok I will get the compiler. what I like about FMP is that it will run under both PC and MAC and you can use the complier software on Two computers if you want one PC and one MAC that way you can do Run time programs for clients. But when you are programing the DB you can do it on both machines. I started with this as I have a PC at home and most of my Clients have Mac's. And most of my Clients were running FMP on thier MAC's so I picked it up for my PC and then called the company and they offer good support and advice and the program in under 500.00 and the complier and program are under 1200.00 not a bad price when you are talking about relationable DB's. and they have a cheaper product for the home user but if you have the complier the end user does not need to have FM on thier computer.

I'm thinking about using FM to set up my recipe DB, since I already own the program. I'll have to check out their compiler.
 
marytexas said:
I've been checking out new recipe software. I've had
Mastercook but it doesnt have ability to print category page or listings of recipes within a category. I've been trying Cookn but having trouble backing up. Did backup but then couldnt open file to see if everything is ok.
Does anyone have any ideas? Do you have any software that you really like to use to put your recipes in cookbook fashion?
Thanks.
Actually, MasterCook will do this for you, and more than just categories, it will do it by keyword as well (say you want a list of recipes containing strawberries).

What you do is use the search function by keyword or phrase, choose which cookbooks or all of them (not a good idea if you MasterCook is as bulging as mine).
A list of recipes will come up in the box. Click on the first one, scroll to the bottom, press shift, copy all and paste into whatever document you want it in.
I hope this helps. If you need help doing it (your version of MC may be a little different) just let me know.
I love MasterCook!
~mouse
 
I used to use Mastercook, but got frustrated with it's "import" abilities. Granted, I did not have the most recent version, but I found it less than convenient.

So, recently, I went out and researched all of the ones I could find online. The top two contenders were Now You're Cooking and BigOven. I downloaded the trial of NYC and while it has lots of features, I found it to be very non-intuitive. I had a hard time figuring out how to make it do what I wanted.

By contrast, BigOven had almost all the same features, and is VERY intuitive. Very easy to use. Imported all my Mastercook recipes in just a couple of minutes, and importing from the Internet (which I do a lot) is a breeze. So that's the one I bought.

The differences between them are:
  • BigOven has a PDA function, useful for grocery shopping and so on. NYC doesn't.
  • NYC has a duplicate finder, BigOven doesn't. But according to BigOven's forums, it is on the list for a future version.
  • NYC creates web pages for you, BigOven doesn't. This wasn't a big deal for me.
I made a small Excel spreadsheet comparing about 15 different softwares when I was researching, showing prices, whether it has a demo or not, the various features and the url to check them out. If anybody would like a copy of that spreadsheet, just drop me a note and I'll send it to you. Might save a little time if you are currently shopping around.

Valerie
 
"Living Cookbook has the best support of any of them. Ask a question and within a few hours or sooner you have an answer. But the program itself is slower. "

I use Diet Pro a different version to "Living Cookbook and I find it quite fast. I also like the capture section that allows you to paste in recipes and divide them into sections such as Recipe name, Procedure and ingredients. I have been using it for about a year and it has the big thumbs up for me. :cool:
 
I've been looking at this one:
Cookbook Wizard
It has a nice list of features including capability of importing recipes from Meal Master and Master Cook and exporting recipes to Word.
I've used NYC and Master Cook in the past but want to start fresh. Right now everything's in Word.
 
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