There are dozens, if not hundreds, of photography programs available in stores and online. I’ve tested many of them and found them lacking primarily because of the import/export capability and service responsiveness, or lack thereof.
One time receipt bought software in the store without trying I totally regret it. I decided that I would not buy another program until I tried it and was satisfied. In my research I demoed several programs and found all but one to be missing. Even then, the plan I chose was not perfect, but the result was so minor that it was worth noting, which I will mention later.
The two programs we are comparing are Home Cookin 5.5 by Monte Software and Cookbook Wizard for Windows 2.0 by MicroBlast Software. Home Cookin is the program I wanted to buy. I wanted to get the Cookbook Wizard because of the “high rating” request on the website. I didn’t think much about those requests when I tried it, but they caught my attention when I decided to compare the two programs to the recipe.
The first problem I had with every program I tried was importing recipes. Cookbook Wizard and Home Cookin were just two that provided for easy importing and exporting. I tried to import and export from each account.
Exporting from both was pretty painless, although with Cookbook Wizard you have many options, the first of which is to export or export to Word. Ok, but when you choose Exporting, then you have a choice between Ready Import Format (it doesn’t say for which program), Comma Delimited, HTML Format, and Text Format. It also tells you where they were saved. But, unless the user is computer-savvy, Comma Delimited and HTML Format can mean nothing, let alone Text Format.
When exporting from Home Cookin, formats Home Cookin (with images and text only), Flour Master, Mastercook, XML, Recipe Index (Titles only), and saving to clipboard. As with the Wizard’s Cookbook, XML means nothing to a non-computer savvy person. Both Breakfast Master and Mastercook are .txt formatted files.
Importance was a bit of an experiment in patience. With the Cookbook Wizard, you can use the Import Wizard where you cut and paste from the clipboard or from a .txt file. It will place important information on the left side of the screen where you cut/copy and paste or reproduce the information on the right side in the proper field. To use the import option, you have several options: Cookbook Wizard (Import Ready Format), Recipe Wizard (Compressed Recipe Wizard), Recipe Wizard (E-Mail Format), Meal Master (DOS Ver 8.x), Master Cook II or Master Cook 3 (MXC Format), Micro Cook (DOS Ver, ASCII Format, 50 C Width), Micro Cookbook Ver 3.0 (MKCW Format), and Micro Cookbook (Ver 5, MXP Export Format). I exported it from Home Cookin to the Meal Master and Mastercook formats. Mastercook format is inconsistent. With the Lunch Master, it seemed to import fine, but I can’t find the recipe. However, the file of both programs can be opened and imported using the clipboard, as are both text files. So to import in the whole life of the magician, but at the same time very painful.
With Home Cookin, you can import a document (I exported one recipe from Cookbook Wizard to Word and then imported it into Home Cookin) or you can open the document, then cut it into Home Cookin. I exported the recipe, which was saved with the CW extension. Cookin brought it home so it had to be handled manually. Manual import of a similar text document. Highlight each part, label, size, ingredients, instructions, click on the appropriate buttons, labels, serving size, etc., then click Save. Voila. Even when importing manually, importing with Home Cookin is much less time consuming than the Earth Wizard.
Cookbook Wizard has many different additions such as nutritional values, but they must be entered manually if the recipe you are importing has these. If it doesn’t have or input the original recipe, nutritional value value is very useless unless you know how to determine those values on your behalf. Part of the pleasure of having a recipe program (for me at least) is having everything you need there. I can easily scale down the recipe. And I can keep track of my experiments. If I wanted the nutritional value to be there, I would not insist on it before putting the product on the manufacturer. Unless the program can determine the nutritional value of the product, it is pretty useless. Go ahead, you can look at spices and see what foods you use, or you can look at foods and see what spices you use. This is very handy for someone like me who wants to try something new. a list of spices and herbs that I have never heard of. Recipes can be searched by cuisine or category. You can also print the cookbook in multiple formats and organize it in multiple formats. Both programs have categories (Home Cookin calls them Chapters). Either way you can produce a shopping list, which you can then edit if you want. With Home Cookin, meals can be planned months in advance. This is very handy for cooking bus with family. I would like this feature if I were the type of designer. With Home Cookin you also have the ability to run the program from a Flashdrive. That would be handy for me when I want to cook at my sister’s house and bring recipes.
Surface Cookbook Wizard is better than Home Cookin at a lower price. It has a lot of options, so some are more expensive (i.e., find nutritional values if you don’t mind not having them for all recipes). Although for importing, I prefer the easier use of home cookin. But there is one thing, that the Earth does not have a Wizard’s life. Here’s the deal-breaker. You cannot change the recipe based on the serving size. If you import a recipe for eight servings, you must manually change the calculation for each ingredient. Now, the Cookin’ House isn’t perfect. If you want to change the recipe from 8 to 40, he is going to tell me to use ten teaspoons of basil and 20 tablespoons of celery. Not a deal breaker in my case. I’d like to finish whatever I’m usually down to one.
If you don’t care about such things, you may need a program. I am not particular. I just want to be able to re-import without having to cut and paste each field or retype the recipe (although in defense of the Cookbook Wizard I’ve tried to import programs with worse features), and I want to be able to resize the recipe very easily.
Happy cooking.
