Evernote vs. Living Cookbook

[Cuilidh]

Here I am still dithering about electronic recipe books and am sorely tempted, but need that final nudge to push me in the right direction.  I have read a lot on this forum and perhaps I just need someone to say "GET THIS ONE AND YOU WON'T REGRET IT!" but I am not sure that it is fair of me to ask that of any of you.

Evernote and Living Cookbook seem to be the most commonly used - are there any others that you would recommend?

I know a lot of you use Evernote and some use Living Cookbook so would like to compare the two.  I like Living Cookbook because it gives you the nutritional breakdown of your recipe.  Does Evernote do this?

I like Evernote because it's free and seems very popular, although Living cookbook seems to have had good reviews.

I believe Living Cookbook can only be used on one computer, if you use more than one computer you need to buy two copies, is that correct?

For users of electronic recipe books, are they worth the trouble and hassle of down loading recipes, are they really good or simply a convenient tool to have and use?  I keep coming back to these programs because they appear to be a good alternative to hard copies of recipes but am wary of making the wrong choice because there is so much time involved in converting recipes from Word (and I have so little free time) that I would be really, really annoyed if I went to all that trouble only to find that it has been a waste of time and they are no better than a hard copy.

Sorry to ramble on, it all boils down to me being totally confused, wanting to be convinced that I am making the right decision and, therefore, I am bouncing around like a beach ball on drugs!!!

[courton]

I have both and use Evernote to download recipes off the forum and try the dish . When it gets the thumbs up from all members of the clan I ( at leisure ) move it to living cookbook since I like the way it lays out the recipe, nutritional ingredients etc. You can bind your favourites as a book if you desire.why don't you try the free trial version of LC and play around with it?

[faffa_70]

I love LCB and you can copy and paste your word docs straight in to capture to add them to LCB. I took a day on the weekend when I purchased it and played around with the settings to get it exactly how I wanted it set out. I also removed all the recipes that came with it that I new I wouldn't use.

Yes you can only use it on one computer but if you buy another licence (as I inter to do) you can just export the data file and import it to your other computer...or as I do at the moment export it to my brother so he at least has some new recipes to try in his TMX 

The kids will get a copy when they FINALLY leave home with their TMX too and all the family favourites will be there.

If you have a play around with the free one, any work you do will be saved if you decide to buy, you just add your serial number to it. I think the only thing you can't do is change the layout on the trial version.

I really love the capture feature where it is just copy and paste, the highlight the relevant bits for each category. It is really quick once you have done a couple. 

[ElleG]

Hi Cuilidh, I have evernote and I must be doing something wrong. Whenever I add a recipe it cramps up the writing so much I have trouble following it. Following advice (sorry I can't remember who it was) I purchased Paprika Recipe manager.

I copy and paste onto it, and have been gradually adding to it. There is an upload function (which I will get my son to show me how to use), but I havent managed it yet.

I like how I can add one recipe to different catorgies so the recipes are easy to find - for instance a recipe may be catogrised as Thermomix, Dinner and Quirky Jo.

I am going to sync to my laptop now, so will have the recipes on two sites. Thanks for this post, it reminded me I need to do this

Elle

[Jude59]

I love Paprika too.  It's such a simple straight forward program and the ipad app syncs to the laptop etc.

[Mary Brown]

Ohhh thanks Guilidh for this thread..... or perhaps not  this sounds like something that I might need to look into...  I am forever copying and pasting recipes from all over the place and then I can never find them. I await with baited breah to read more and see what you finally decide on....

[Deeau]

Evernote does not do nutrition it is not specific cookink software it is pretty much the same as Microsoft Onenote but syncs to different PC's.
I use  3,  Mastercook, Evernote and now Advantage Cooking 2, I copy recipes from the net to using Evernote, very quick and very easy, if we like it, it gets transfered to Mastercook.
 I recently bought Advantage Cooking it is for a different purpose its for bulk cooking and it great ( It imports from  Mastercook so entry is easy ) The sole purpose for AC is that you plan a bulk cooking day and they way that the entries are put in the software you get a shopping list, recipe printout and check list  for the day you prepare the meal and freeze ( will even tell you to "dice 6 cup onions " that you will use in all your pre work )  and then you can print out another shopping list for the day you serve. It will give you a check off list of what you have put in the freezer that also tells you beside every recipe what you need to serve. Its not pretty software but it works for what I want it for.
 So they all have different purposes ( BTW AC I don't think does nutrition either ) both the specific cooking softwares take some initial set up but once done I can import recipes the text from Evernote to Mastercook and then the mastercook file to Advantage Cooking so its not too bad to keep them up to date. It would be perfect if one software did all I want but I have not yet found that, Both of my softwares can be used on multiple computers, I have them on my PC my laptop and my work PC.

All this works for me now....if I buy and ipad one day I will have to reassess it all, my Mastercook recipe file has more than 600 recipes in it so any software I use MUST be able in import from Mastercook.


For what its worth in Evernote I have my cookbooks set up like this , I have a notebook call Recipes and it has "stacked notebooks" inside it for Meat, Chicken , Bread etc so if you need to search for a recipe it becomes very quick.

[nazar]

thanks cuilidh for asking these question
l  have  been wondreing the same myself
l have been reading all the threads and trying to work out myself which one to use myself
so l will be looking forward to reading everyones  answers

[cookie1]

I think it is a matter of finding what suits you best. I still like the paper bit in a file. (it travels with me well too) I copy to Evernote, try the recipe and if it's a success print it for the file.

[snappy]

I also use Paprika and love it.  It is very simple and can automatically upload recipes from the Internet for you.  You can add your own photos, include notes and nutritional information etc.

You can also email recipes directly from paprika.

I think it was only about $5 on the app store, evermore is free and LCB also has a free trial.  Why don't you just check them all out and work out which one is best for you?

[faffa_70]

you can email from LCB too - forgot to add that in

Of course what we have all forgotten is, it will depend entirely on what operating system you are using lol

I am on a MAC but run VM Fusion just so I can run LCB. I already had over 1000 recipes in there when I bought my MAC and when you export you don't get photo's and links so decided it was too much work and easier to just install VM fusion 

[Cuilidh]

I think I should be OK with either evernote or LCB as I am on a PC and don't have an iphone (or an "i" anything, for that matter).  Is paprika just an app as opposed to a program?  I must google it and find out.

I think I may be leaning a little more to LCB but won't go any further now for 2 - 3 weeks as I am neck deep in organising a big conference in two weeks time followed the next weekend by an event that my DH and I are also heavily involved in.  So, mid-March I MAY have some free time and will have a play with the trial version of LCB and also take a closer look at evernote.  Hope everyone keeps posting and adding to this thread, though, to give me (and others) some more ideas.

[dyljon]

I keep all my recipes on onenote at the moment (have around 400 on there), if I got LCB would it be easy to transport them all in there? I like the idea of the nutitional breakdown as I'm just about to voyage into the world of weight watchers online... maybe I'll try the free trial too.

[Cuilidh]

Check out the FAQ area on the Living Cook Book site, you may get your answer there.  I would be interested to hear how you get on with the trial version.

I'd love to get started now, but I know if I start I won't stop and I've still got too much organising to do so must keep myself in check.

[Bonsai]

I don't think there's a way to 'automatically' put recipes from one note into Living Cookbook. For those with iphones or ipads One Note is a free app at the moment (well, it was when I got it a few weeks ago) and you can sync a folder on your PC with the app - may be helpful if you want to check a recipe when out shopping etc. One Note is part of the Microsoft Office Suite.

I use Living Cookbook and love it. I haven't really used evernote much so can't really compare though. With my LC at home I purchased two copies and have one on my PC and one on my notebook, but have the benefit of a networked hard drive so I can access one database from both computers (otherwise you end up with two different recipe books, or have to use a thumb drive or similar to 'transport' the database from computer to computer).