Software?

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DoreenBrown

Assistant Cook
Joined
Feb 7, 2008
Messages
19
I'm looking for a simple program to organize my recipes. I've checked Google but have not had much success (I'm not a very computer literate person and the Google responses overwhelmed me...).
Thanks!
Doreen Brown
 
If all you want to do is organize your exiting recipes on your computer, you don't need a special application.

Create a folder labeled RECIPES. Within that folder, create folders for the food categories you want, MEATS, SEAFOOD, DESSERTS, SAUCES, etc. Within each of those category folders create a folder titled something like 'Tried and True' (TnT) or similar.

File your TnT recipes in the TnT folders in each category. File any untried recipes in their category folders outside of the TnT folder.

Keep the RECIPES folder in My Documents (PC) or Finder (Mac).

If you also want to be able to do ingredient searches or automatic shopping lists or calculate nutritional information, then you need a cookbook app.
 
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If you also want to be able to do ingredient searches or automatic shopping lists or calculate nutritional information, then you need a cookbook app.

I'm not sure how you would do the nutritional info or the automatic shopping list, but if you enter your recipes in spreadsheets, you should be able to do ingredient searches. It also makes conversions and doubling or halving a recipe easy.

Heck, you could do ingredient searches of recipes stored as PDFs.
 
Sorry to piggyback on this question, but it seems to be related. Do any of these cookbook programs keep track of nutritional info? More than calories, fat and protein? like potassium, magnesium, etc
 
Nutritional Analysis Software

I use this software for nutritional analysis...

FoodWorks

You can download it free for a trial, or pay if you find it works well for you. Its quite complex, but I find it easy to use and really good for all the specific micronutrient and vitamin contents of foods. To analyse recipes you have to put in all the ingredients seperately, or it also has some standard analyses for average dishes.

Hope it helps!
HJB
 
If all you want to do is organize your exiting recipes on your computer, you don't need a special application.

Create a folder labeled RECIPES. Within that folder, create folders for the food categories you want, MEATS, SEAFOOD, DESSERTS, SAUCES, etc. Within each of those category folders create a folder titled something like 'Tried and True' (TnT) or similar.

File your TnT recipes in the TnT folders in each category. File any untried recipes in their category folders outside of the TnT folder.

Keep the RECIPES folder in My Documents (PC) or Finder (Mac).

If you also want to be able to do ingredient searches or automatic shopping lists or calculate nutritional information, then you need a cookbook app.
Andy, You been peeking into my computer?

That's pretty much the same technique I use.
 
This very subject has been brought up many times before and I think Andy has an exelent soulution. That is what I do. Works really well. Evrything is organised alfabetically and whatever other order you want. Like Andy mentioned, soups, sauces, etc, etc. Just don't forget to back up your file in case you PC is murdered ny some nasty virus or some other c... well, you know what I mean.
 
Resurrecting an old thread

If all you want to do is organize your exiting recipes on your computer, you don't need a special application.

Create a folder labeled RECIPES. Within that folder, create folders for the food categories you want, MEATS, SEAFOOD, DESSERTS, SAUCES, etc. Within each of those category folders create a folder titled something like 'Tried and True' (TnT) or similar.

File your TnT recipes in the TnT folders in each category. File any untried recipes in their category folders outside of the TnT folder.

Keep the RECIPES folder in My Documents (PC) or Finder (Mac).

If you also want to be able to do ingredient searches or automatic shopping lists or calculate nutritional information, then you need a cookbook app.


I use the free versions of two programs to store the recipes which DOES allow searching a folder/subfolders for multiple keywords (ingredients).

Bullzip offers a PDF printer which is installed an another printer option. Anything printable can be turned into a PDF file.

FREE PDF Printer

I use the free version of PDF-XChange Editor as my default PDF viewer.

Tracker Software Products :: Product

"The FREE download of the PDF-XChange Editor may be used without limitation for Private, Commercial, Government and all uses, provided it is not: incorporated or distributed for profit/commercial gain with other software or media distribution of any type - without first gaining permission."

The paid version offers a few added capabilities, but unnecessary for this project.

Once the document is open in PDF XChange Editor, use the program's built-in OCR function to create a new copy. I personally choose to overwrite the first file with the newer OCR'd file.

Using the program's Search function, I can search the designated folder and subfolders for multiple ingredients.

Without going into detail, there are only a few internal settings required telling it how / where to search.

Should anyone be interested, I'll be glad to help.

Also, using the CamScanner app for my phone, it is possible to create PDF images which can be made searchable.

I am not advocating violating copyright law.
 
I use the free versions of two programs to store the recipes which DOES allow searching a folder/subfolders for multiple keywords (ingredients).

Bullzip offers a PDF printer which is installed an another printer option. Anything printable can be turned into a PDF file.

FREE PDF Printer

I use the free version of PDF-XChange Editor as my default PDF viewer.

Tracker Software Products :: Product

"The FREE download of the PDF-XChange Editor may be used without limitation for Private, Commercial, Government and all uses, provided it is not: incorporated or distributed for profit/commercial gain with other software or media distribution of any type - without first gaining permission."

The paid version offers a few added capabilities, but unnecessary for this project.

Once the document is open in PDF XChange Editor, use the program's built-in OCR function to create a new copy. I personally choose to overwrite the first file with the newer OCR'd file.

Using the program's Search function, I can search the designated folder and subfolders for multiple ingredients.

Without going into detail, there are only a few internal settings required telling it how / where to search.

Should anyone be interested, I'll be glad to help.

Also, using the CamScanner app for my phone, it is possible to create PDF images which can be made searchable.

I am not advocating violating copyright law.
I have been using Bullzip PDF printer and PDF Xchange Viewer for years and have to agree they are very handy. I have never needed to OCR anything I printed with Bullzip. The only thing I need to OCR to make searchable is photos and one company's downloadable credit card statements. :ermm:

The Windows search function will find a single ingredient in the current folder and all the sub folders. I just searched my "food" directory for eggplant and it found 8 PDFs and 2 text files. None of the files had eggplant in the name. My food folder has 61 directories and 622 files. It will even find stuff in Libre Office spreadsheets and text documents.
 
Funny, I spent weeks trying every suggestion I found online in order to get the search in Windows 7 Pro to work. I changed the settings for it to search file contents, checked the PDF file extension, added the PDF iFilter, and completely reindexed a couple of times. It would still only find the occurrences in the filename, not the contents. I then installed the standalone software, FileSeek, which was supposed to perform text search. Still did not search contents. Glad to know it does work for some.

For those, the process, as you found, is much simpler.

Some other options I failed to mention about Editor (free) that you might want to consider are that once it is OCR'd, you can use text highlighting, strikeout, underline, text editing, a crude typewriter function, ability to insert text boxes and yellow Post-It type boxes, plus it has a snapshot tool to capture a selection that can be pasted elsewhere.

The above make it possible to add all of your recipe notes, comments, or amount adjustments to a saved recipe. I'm a complete noob to cooking, but I find this useful.

Some additional functions of the paid version may be used but will display "DEMO" across the content. Again, it is NOT necessary to pay the license fee for the functions I described.

I initially used Viewer as my Adobe replacement before I became aware of the added capabilities of Editor. You might want to take a look.
 
I really love google drive, I can have the app on my tablet, phone, computer and always have access to my recipes, and easily share them on the fly.
 
Mike, search might work that way for me because I have Win 8. I don't remember if it worked with Win 7.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Discuss Cooking mobile app
 
Well, I'm facing a major upheaval. I downloaded the trial of Win 8 when it first came out, hated it, and determined to stay with 7.

Now, my old HP laptop is approaching five years and am starting to have some issues. I just ordered a low end Toshiba that is actually less powerful than my old HP, due to much tighter budget now. It will come with Win 10 Home.

I started with DOS 2.1 and liked typing from the command prompt. I did finally get used to Windows (started with the flaky 3.0, then 3.1) but find nothing to like about how Win 8 & 10 operate.

I suspect it won't be an easy transition.
 
I know this is late to the convo, but copymethat is a pretty cool tool. Its on the web and there is an app that allows you to strip recipes from blogs (if that's your thing) or write your own and assign keywords etc. From the site/app you can add recipes to a weekly menu and a sorted shopping list.
 
We use Microsoft WordPad to save our recipes. Pretty much any version of Word will still pull them up plus we can still use WordPad. We use descriptive titles so that a simple search function using titles only will find a recipe. Alternatively, you can do as Andy originally described and make separate files under a master file of Cookbook for beef, pork, poultry, deserts, soups, etc. You don't need a special program to strip recipes from blogs, just use copy and paste under edit, alternatively ctrl c, ctrl v.
 
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