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Importing Recipes from Word or a Text File

MasterCook cannot open or read a Microsoft Word document file or Excel file, etc. Furthermore, there is hidden code in a Word document file that creates a problem for MasterCook. So, you need to first copy the text in the Word document file and paste it into Windows Notepad to create a .txt file. Using 'Save as Txt' in Word is not good enough. You need to copy your text out of Word.

Then you need to make sure all of the text is aligned to the left of the screen. There should not be any blank spaces at the beginning of any line of text.

If there are fraction symbols such as ½ you need to replace those with their three-character equivalent such as 1/2.

Replace any abbreviations with their full equivalent too, such as changing 1 c. water to 1 cup water.

MasterCook can import several recipes within one text file. However, each recipe has to begin with a line with 5 @ symbols and there needs to be a blank line between the recipe title, ingredients, and directions. Set up your recipes like this:

@@@@@
Recipe One

1/2 cup this
1/4 cup that

Several paragraphs of directions can go here until the next recipe begins with 5 @ symbols again.

 

EXAMPLE:

word-formatting.png

After you have your recipes set up in the above format within a text file in Windows Notepad, it is ready to import into the program. Start MasterCook. Create a new cookbook or open an existing cookbook. Select Import from the File menu. Direct it to your .txt file that has the recipes formatted as explained above to import the recipes into the program.

See the attached apple-recipes.txt file below. Save it to your computer. Select Import from the File menu in MasterCook. Import the recipes inside this file into MasterCook. Open the .txt file with Notepad to see the formatting used in these recipes as described above. Follow that format.

OTHER OPTIONS:

KEYWORD FORMAT: Or, you can populate more fields if you use the attached format. Import the attached test-import2.txt file below into a cookbook in MasterCook to see how it works. Or, open it with Notepad and copy/paste the text into the Import Assistant and use the Auto-Fill button and see what you get there too.

IMPORT ASSISTANT: This tells you how to use the Import Assistant which will fill all fields: Using the Import Assistant – MasterCook Community

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