The Cookbook Company - Instructions

Using a Wordprocessor
Note: Your recipes must be submitted on a disk, cd or emailed as an attachment. We no longer typeset recipes from handwritten notes, typewritten pages, computer printouts, etc. as this defeated our purpose of providing affordable cookbooks.

1. Put in computer format all the recipes that you want to assemble into your cookbook.

2. Select the various options that you want to use such as which cover page, divider page and typestyle. (See features)

3. Fill out the order form and send with recipes and down payment. Make checks payable to "The Cookbook Company". (A 50% payment will be needed at this time)

4. A proof will then be sent to you for approval.

5. Check the proof for any typesetting errors and return the proof with indicated corrections along with the remaining 50% payment.

6. Your cookbooks will then be published and returned to you.

Order Form
You will need Acrobat Reader to download the order form. Most likely this is already on your computer. If not you can download it here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Then click below to download and print order form:

orderform.pdf

You can also e-mail us if you prefer to have us fax you an order form.

New! You can now fill out your order form online.

Preparing Recipes
After gathering all the recipes together categorize and group them according to the following section dividers:

Appetizers & Beverages
Soups, Salads & Vegetables
Main Dishes
Breads & Rolls
Pastries and Desserts
Miscellaneous

Recipes will not be entered alphabetically. Instead they will be entered in your cookbook in a manner that uses space efficiently. An index option is offered, however, that will alphabetize your recipes.

Providing Recipes on Disk
Providing recipes on disk is probably the main way we are able to publish cookbooks at a very reasonable cost. Files can be either saved to a floppy disk, zip cartridge, CD-Rom or e-mailed as an attachment.

Please note: We are only interested in the information. You do not have to use any special font or page size. It is important that you do NOT put ingredients in 2 columns. Just list them one after another.

Using virtually any word processor you can enter your recipes. Please begin each recipe with "@@@@". This makes it easy for us to find where each recipe starts. The recipe should be entered in the following order:

@@@@
Recipe name
Contributor
{space}
Ingredient
Ingredient
Ingredient
etc.
{space}
Directions (Must be printed in a single paragraph)

If certain ingredients belong to a specific part of the recipe like a topping or sauce enter the heading followed by a colon before the appropriate ingredients. Here's an example of a complete recipe:

-----

@@@@
Crisp Spinach Salad
Mary Lewis

1/2 lb spinach (cleaned)
3/4 lb bacon crisply cooked pieces
2 cans (small) mandarin orange segments
1/2 large purple onion (thinly sliced)

Poppy Seed Dressing:
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. salt
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp. onion juice
1 cup salad oil
1 1/2 T. poppy seeds

Combine salad items, cover and chill. Prepare dressing. In mixer bowl combine sugar, mustard, salt, vinegar and onion juice. Gradually beat in oil until mixture is thick and smooth. Stir in seeds. Serves 6.

-----

Please group your recipes according to category such as: Breads & Rolls, Main Dishes, etc.

Type out fractions like 1/2. Try to avoid shorthand fractions such as ½. Also avoid any other special symbols such as o for degrees.

Now is the time to look for any type of spelling errors, missing ingredients, etc. It is much more difficult to fix these things after the proof is done.
Cookbook Sequence

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Photo Page or Artwork Page (Option)
4. Table of Contents
5. Recipes and Dividers
6. Index
7. Helpful Tips, etc.
8. Back Cover

All cookbooks are done in this sequence. The front cover is laminated and the back cover is on coated heavy stock.

Already have a cookbook created?
If you've already created a cookbook with your computer and your page size is 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 we can usually print directly from your files at a very competitive price. Please e-mail us for further instructions.

e-mail: service@cookbookco.com