How to create your own cookbook online for free

Posted on August 23, 2007 at 8:15 am

Ever wanted to make your own custom cookbook that you could give your friends and family for free? Are you one of those people who create their own unique dishes that everyone raves about at parties? Or maybe you just want to create a special gift for a daughter or son with your favorite recipes in the world?

MidWestLiving has a free service that lets you create a professional-looking and customized cookbook online. You can grab recipes from MidWestLiving’s database of over 10,000 recipes or add your own recipes. You can even start with one of their recipes and modify it to your tastes, so you don’t have to start from scratch. Your cookbook is downloadable as a full-color PDF file, which you can then print professionally if you like.

To get started, click on Start Your Cookbook Now. Enter a title for your cookbook, author information and the date. You can also select from up to 5 styles.

The next page is the central page for creating all the content for your cookbook. You can add up to three introduction pages, which includes a heading, some text and a photo in JPEG format. You can use these pages to dedicate your book or explain what kind of food it is about.

After that, each section is broken up into Chapters, most of which are already created for you. You can, of course, delete a chapter you won’t use or you can edit the title, etc. Chapters include Appetizers & Snacks, Beverages, Main Dishes, Sides & Salads, Soups & Sandwiches, Breads, and Desserts.

Click Edit Chapter to begin adding recipes to the cookbook. You can “upload” your own or pick one from their recipe site. If you upload your own, you select the category, give it a name, how many does it serve, ingredients, cooking instructions, and  a photo.

The final book created by MidWestLiving is very elegant looking and professional. And since you get it in electronic format, it’s easy to email to your friends and family instead of shipping a book. It’s also great for fund-raising to sell cookbooks to office workers, etc for some cause. Check it out!

Enjoy! Any questions, post a comment!

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Comments

13 Responses to “How to create your own cookbook online for free”

  1. Sara said on : March 25th, 2008 at 5:37 pm

    how do u start making the cookbook?


  2. Michelle said on : September 11th, 2008 at 1:16 am

    It says to click “Start Your Cookbook Now”, however, I can’t find a link to acctually start it anywhere. How do you start?


  3. Mary-Claude said on : October 16th, 2008 at 8:10 am

    Where is the link to start the cookbook? You mentioned to click on “Start Your Cookbook Now,” but cannot find it.

    Where is it?

    Thanks,


  4. Tiffany said on : October 19th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    I figured it out! Okay listen up ladies this is how you can get to it!!! Go up on this page and in the second paragraph click on the blue MidWestLiving. It will take you to a page and say we’re sorry cannot find this page you will notice on the top of that page it has tabs click on the food tab…once you are on that page you will see the list of catagories on the left click create a cookbook..when the next page comes up just click on the purple create your own cook book. then just register and it takes you right to the start!!!!!


  5. Jeannie said on : January 29th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

    I have added recipes to the Appetizer chapter. It was very easy, but when I clicked on “View Your Cookbook”, there was only ONE recipe on each 8 1/2 x 11 page! I had 12 pages with only 1 recipe on each page!

    How can I get several recipes on the page?
    How can I print on the back side?
    Can I make the book 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 instead of a whole page?

    Gee, I hope someone out there has printed their book and can help me!

    Thanks so much!


  6. Hannah said on : May 10th, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    Hi peepshey, I was trying to get on to the site so I could get going on making my own cookbook online….but I can’t seem to get it started!?


  7. Amy said on : May 11th, 2009 at 8:02 am

    Tiffany ,

    Thanks for the above information .

    Is it free to create a recipe book?


  8. liz said on : May 20th, 2009 at 11:35 am

    I want to print out my cookbook, but it will not connect to the viewable book! I have been waiting for hours! There’s no one to help or ask! I need to print it out today! Please HELP


  9. Debi said on : May 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 am

    I want to make a cookbook in my mother’s memory with her recipes. Can I do it with this site and then have it printed up to distribute?


  10. Kristy said on : December 11th, 2009 at 1:45 am

    So can we print this out or not I wanted a printable cook book to share not just on the computer, but with all my friends I hope so because i have done so much work I would hate to have to do it over..thank you Kristy


  11. Shaunna said on : December 24th, 2009 at 4:03 am

    Where does it allow you to add recipes from their website? I only see the option of uploading my own recipes…is it possible to add theirs?


  12. Polly said on : March 10th, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    you go to the very bottom where you can view comments and on top of it, it says ” Create your own family cookbook” you click that and there you have it


  13. Dan said on : June 18th, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    It easy. Once you are done creating the cookbook, you click “view this cookbook” and it downloads as a pdf file (although it may say .jsp at the end). I was able to open and print it with Adobe Acrobat.

    To actually create the cookbook, you have to go to midwestliving.com


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