Compressing & Resizing Recipe Images

Although there is a limit of 12,000 recipes in a cookbook, your cookbook file sizes are affected. There is a 2 GB file size limit on the computer.

• The .mc2 file contains the text of a cookbook.
• Its companion .mcx file contains all of the images used in a cookbook.

WARNING: If you inserted multiple, really large images, and the .mcx file exceeds 2 GB, you will lose your images in the cookbook. They will not be recoverable. You can avoid this if you resize and compress your images.

Compressing and resizing the images in a cookbook can also help when you wish to share a cookbook with someone else, so the files are not so large.

TIP: If you wish to test the results of these settings, try it out on a copy of a cookbook. You can quickly make a copy of a cookbook by using the Save Cookbook As command from the File menu while in the Cookbooks screen.

The Cookbook Image Maintenance command from the Tools menu allows you to:

• Select the image type: (a) JPEG or (b) PNG
• Set the compression factor
• Set the pixel size of recipe images -- change either the width or the height
• Set the pixel size of the direction images -- change either the width or the height

When you set the pixel size of either the width or height, the aspect ratio is maintained and the other side is automatically adjusted so that your images are not distorted.

To compress and resize images in a cookbook:

1. Make sure you have a current backup copy of your files. If something goes wrong, you can easily restore the backup copies. Do not skip this step.
2. Next, open a cookbook so you are viewing the list of recipe titles within the Recipe Browser screen.
3. Select Cookbook Image Maintenance from the Tools menu.
4. Adjust the desired settings and press the OK button.
5. Be patient while the task completes. Read the caution below. When the task is complete, the Cookbook Image Maintenance dialog box will appear. Press OK.

CAUTION: Depending on the number of recipes and images to resize and compress, it can take a long time for MasterCook to complete the task. Windows may even give you a false message that MasterCook quit responding. Ignore that message. Do not interrupt or close MasterCook while it completes its task, or it will corrupt your cookbook.