Hi, everyone!
Another Canadian adding to the mix.
I have some questions about creating recipe books and I was wondering where in the forums would be a good place to ask?
Thank you!
Epub e-books are a zip file with an .epub file extension. The e-book is a zip file made up of html files within the zip file. Pictures within the e-book are jpeg files stored within the zip file. Usually there is one html file for each chapter of the e-book.
You can use MS Word to write HTML files. Embed pictures within the HTML file. Make an HTML file for each chapter of the book. Place all of the HTML chapters in a standard ZIP file. Rename the ZIP to EPUB and you have an E-book. You also have to make an index to tie all of the chapters together and place the index in the zip file, but that’s basically an E-book.
That’s about as much as I know about an e-book format.
Hey, Antelope.
Thanks for the reply!
I’m actually wondering if there’s a need for people to make recipe books automatically, instead of by hand using something like Microsoft Word. I have some ideas in mind for and am looking to know if such a system would be useful.
Not looking to spam here. My business mentor suggested I do some basic market validation research (i.e., “homework”) before spending a lot of time embarking on adventure to build something that nobody would use. 
In essence, I’m looking to determine what “pains” exist in creating recipe books by hand and if I can find a way to ease those pains in any significant way.
It would be nice to have a system to automatically make an e-book.
That’s what I thought, too.
I’d really like to get more feedback, though, and so I was wondering if there was a better forum to post my questions?
This is really the only forum on this site that would discuss this subject. All the other forums are pretty much about recipes.
You can make an ebook by creating your document in MS Word and then converting it to a PDF using Adobe Acrobat software or a free converter like PDF Converter - Convert to PDF Online Free
You can also upload the file to the Amazon Kindle store if you want to sell it there - Self Publishing | Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
I was thinking more of just making a personal e-book of favorite recipes. Seems like I have notepad files here, doc files there, pieces of printed paper, etc. Would be nice to have them in one place. Also it’s something to give to the kids when they ask how mom makes a certain recipe, or to give to relatives.
Thank you, Antilope. Here are my questions, then:
- How do you currently make recipe books?
- What is the most time-consuming part to creating them?
- If you haven’t made a recipe book, why not?
- What factors are important to you (e.g., index, table of contents, recipe photographs, book format [PDF, EPUB, MOBI, HTML])?
I see that some people suggest Microsoft Word – for those who use MS Word, how long does it take to put together a recipe book from start to finish?
Would appreciate everyone’s answers, comments, and ideas!
I haven’t made any books. Just print out recipes on Windows notepad and place them in a binder. Haven’t gone any further than that.
Happy New Year everyone!
Thank you for the interest and kind responses. To clarify, I’m not looking to create a recipe book myself, I’m wondering whether a market exists for automatically creating recipe books.
As Kitchen Witch pointed out, there’s a lot of up-front work required to create a well-written recipe book. My questions have to do more with after you have the recipes honed to perfection and photographs showcasing the food’s final form, what does it take to make a book?
What parts of that effort would people be willing to pay to avoid?
For some, creating the recipe book is a labour of love. For others, not having to manually layout each photograph, hand-craft indexes, fix font inconsistencies, and fight with Word’s Table of Contents would be well worth a sheckel.
Your thoughts, as always, are greatly appreciated.