Don’t you just hate the way some cookbook software’s make you use the old-fashioned slash between numbers when trying to indicate 2/3 cups of sugar in a recipe? You have to find the 2, then the slash, then the 3. That was one of my pet peeves, so when we created Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software, we changed all that by adding a Symbols Page that is pretty handy when entering favorite family recipes into the recipe template.
While typing into the cookbook software’s recipe template, all you have to do is keep the Symbols Page open. Click the “More” button, located on the bottom left of your recipe template page, to open the Symbols Page sidebar. As you type, select the measurements, cooking instructions, temperatures, ingredients and fractions (among other choices) that you want to include in a favorite family recipe.
For example, if a favorite family recipe calls for baking ingredients for 20 minutes, you would type “20″ and hit the space bar, then click “Minutes” in the Symbols Page. Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software will automatically insert the word “Minutes” into your text while you are typing a favorite family recipe into the recipe template. Similarly, when you want to type in a fraction, just find it on the Symbols Page, click, and poof, it’s there in your recipe.
Using the Symbols Page is a real time saver for me (and you), because we never have to physically type those tedious repetitively-used terms into the recipe template again. (Be aware that you cannot go back and edit recipes that are already typed and completed; the word or symbol you select will be added at the end of the last sentence on the page, which can easily be cut and pasted into the correct place in your text. The next version of our cookbook software may address this technicality.)
When you are finished typing your favorite family recipe into the recipe template, simply click “Hide” and the Symbols Page sidebar will disappear from view along with the drop-down windows that give you many other word and symbol choices for your favorite family recipes.
If you haven’t tried using the Symbols Page, we have a short video that makes it pretty easy to understand how to use the Symbols Page:
http://www.cookbookpeople.com/symbols.htm
Happy Cookbooking.
Matilda
