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I use Mastercook, and I'm also doing something along the lines of what you are, I've got binders of printed out pages of categorized recipes from online and hand typed, before I discovered Mastercook... so now I'm going through the process of converting them into their own cookbooks within the program. :)

I started a word document a while back to keep some of the recipes I was making over and over and over again. It's not the snazziest, but it does work. And I too await actual answers to your question :P

Brownie, I find it simple to take recipes from online and save them into the program, just a few steps and you're done, no typing, it allows you to do sort of "fill in the blanks" with saving recipes, highlight text and click appropriate boxes... you can create your own cookbooks by subject, like one I just finished adding to is a "Brunch" cookbook I created.. you can add pictures, it gives you nutritional information based on your ingredients, you can print out grocery lists..umm... there's really a lot more than I can type here, lots I haven't gotten into, I like the easy basics of it... I've also imported entire cookbooks from other online users with thousands of recipes based on dietary needs, regional cooking styles, holidays, large crowds... etc.

I've heard people complain about the program, but they're into more advanced usage than I am I guess, cause I haven't had any problems for what I need/use it for. :)

There's a nice group of people online who are available, and are very patient, to help if you run into problems. Recently I had a corrupt file in one of the recipes I imported, it crashed my "my cookbook" file. I simply sent it to a woman and she was able to save my entire cookbook, minus 2 recipes that appeared to have problems which is what created the corruption.

There's also a straightforward manual you can download online too, I learned a lot while perusing that.

Like I said before, I use it for fairly basic purposes and it's perfect for me. But you might have different needs that might be better for a different program, I guess I'll watch this thread too and see what others, (like Cary) have to say

good luck!

here's a screenshot of the setup for Mastercook, when used with IE. Notice the menu bar on the left with the boxes you check which copies whatever text you highligh first.

CLICK ME!

This amazing! I was just thinking this very thing yesterday. I have been collecting and writing recipes for years and they are stuffed into folders. I was looking for something yesterday and the whole damn mess fell out of the cabinet!

@Southern_bella and beth 1 -- Thank you for the info, with special thanks to Southern_bella for that screenshot! Awesome.

Now... can either of you tell me where/how to get MasterCook? I'm so excited!

Hi, another software program you might want to check into is Cook'n. It's what I use and I love it. To take a look at it, go to
www.dvo.com

I bought mine online. There is a free monthly newsletter and a weekly newsletter that costs $8-10 a month, but you get a free recipe book each month with that subscription. There are a lot of cookbooks available, including many Betty Crocker cookbooks, Taste of Home, etc. There is also a forum that I enjoy participating in where tips and recipes are exchanged.

I copy and paste a lot of internet recipes into my Cook'n. With the cookbooks I have received from DVO, internet recipes, and my own recipes, I probably have 10-15,000 recipes, so I use the search feature a lot. When my cabbage is ready from the garden, I type in cabbage and it shows me all the recipes that use that ingredient. It also has a nutrition feature and a shopping list function.

I can't compare it with MasterCook, as Cook'n is what I'm familiar with, but it gives you another option to check out. Have fun software shopping!

i'm intimately familiar with the binders and file folders stuffed with scrawled recipes or recipes torn from newspapers and magazines. i also have had to deal with an ever growing collection of back issues from the two food magazines i subscribe to. and i have at least two document folders of recipes on the computer.

to stem the flow i started using Recipe Center 5.2.
what i like about it:
it has a great autofill function for ingredients
ability to create your own keywords
ability to create and save menus of groups of recipes
handy ingredient printing list (but see what i don't like below)
ability to attach photos of finished dish
range of printing format options

what i don't like about it:
search functionality is minimal -- you can't search on more than one keyword for instance
the shopping list output doesn't add up all the ingredient quantities into 1 entry per ingredient.

i'm going to stick with it now that i've put over hundreds of recipes in it.
i've been using a scanner to slowly tackle the binders and use pretty decent OCR to generate text from the scan. then it's just a matter of copyign and pasting into the recipe database, choosing some keywords, and it's saved!

wow! you are all so tech savy! wish i could help but my system is print out the recipe and put it in a binder with those page pretecors over them. I can scrawl on the page protector to change amounts, and when, you notice i saywhen not if, my computer dies I dont lose all my recipes. Besides i love books, i love seeing rows of books on shelves and i love seeing a full row of 18 binders filled with recipes i've collected through the years.

We had this problem. Recipes from both our families and things we had printed off the internet. The recipes always got thrown in a cabinet and the great sort would have to occur before we could cook something....NO MORE! We started typing or scanning tried and true recipes and now have them on a single folder on the desktop. There are backed up on cdrw or flashdrives. We you want a recipe, print it out and discard after using. I keep a separate folder of recipes which are being tried out and load them on the computer once they have been worked thru. This system is a godsend.

I use a 3 ring notebook that has plastic sleeves for full size paper so i can print off items i love and keep but now i feel woefully low tech:). But i like it and it has a homy feel- i am always online so i enjoy the paper feel.

@2qrs - I am going to check out YUM! I downloaded a trial of MacGourmet, but since it is a trial, I don't have all the features. Importing recipes being the big missing piece. I will send you an e-mail after checking out YUM! Thanks.

I tried Mastercook in the past, but there is something about the magazine clippings with handwritten notes on them that I just love. I, too, subscribe to several food magazines and one of my great pleasures is reading them and clipping recipes. I decided not to try to automate them, but rather I bought some beautiful file folders that I leave on a bookshelf with my cookbooks in my kitchen and organize them in my own way. If I automated them, I'd want to print them out to use them while cooking anyway. So, why waste the paper? Every year or so I go through them and get rid of the stuff that I haven't and probably won't make.

I can't imagine life without my cookbook collection...in addition to the numerous binders filled with I-prints, I've been collecting for over 20 years. I was the fortunate grandchild to receive Gramma's collection when she passed away. A friend of mine gave me her collection to "hold on to" 4 years ago.

That said...there are many recipes that I use very often. I would love to find a program that allows me to input those "go-to" recipes (in addition to finally consolidating my business recipes) and have a very user-friendly search option.

@2qrs - Mac World is giving a big thumbs up to YummySoup! I posted on their forum regarding the scaling issue and was told the upgrade should be available next week. I am really tempted to go in that direction. For $20, I really don't have anything to lose. If it turns out to be a bad choice, I will skip that next bottle of wine. ;-)

i've been meaning to give TasteBook a try... it seems pretty neat and you can include other featured recipes to your tastebook besides yours.

I'm with love2cook, I like the low-tech 3-ring binder. I can put notes on how to make something or list variations.

Years ago I read a story about a family in which the wife/mother was very ill or died. The father hired a woman to cook and clean and everyone was worried about what she would cook for them. To their surprise every meal was something they liked and prepared just the way they liked it. After a while the father asked how she had managed to do this. She explained that she had found the wife/mother's collection of recipes and cooked those with the most stains and spatters -- something that would never happen if all recipes were saved online or printed and thrown away after each use.

I have 2 3-ring binders. One is for favorite recipes and the other is for recipes to try. They are divided in exactly the same way. The recipes to try binder bulges now and again and I have to purge it. I try to keep only those recipes that I actually might cook -- not all of those that sound good. One thing about the recipes to try, I've found that some are tried soon after I've found them unless they're for a special occasion or holiday. Those that hang around for more than a couple of weeks will probably never get tried.

I also keep a copy of my favorite recipes in my email account. If anything happens to my binder, I've got backup.