Customer Reviews

MasterCook Deluxe 9.0 [Old Version]

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

For those that have MC 8, this new version only adds a few recipes and a some bug fixes...there are no new features from MC 8. I upgraded anyway and am happy with it.

BUT, if you have MC 7 or before, this version is for you!

I've been using Mastercook since version 4 and with the change of ownership it had from Sierra to ValuSoft. I figured Version 6.2 would be the end of the line....but thankfully not..it's up to Version 9 now!

Each version release of MC continues to evolves it and keep it the best possible cooking/planning software on the planet. MC just keeps getting better.

The basics-it comes with a standard set of cookbooks and an increased ingredient list of 7000 items, a place to create a meal plan and shopping list manually or automatically while giving you options on how to import(webImport/email/copy,paste) as well as export(email, printing, copy,paste recipes. It interacts with both Palm/PocketPC to download recipes and grocery lists for swapping or easy list check-off at the grocery store.

The WebImport bar makes it easy to import recipes you find on websites by a highlight and click process that works only in Internet Explorer...but it drastically reduces input time versus typing is all in.

While MC 9 comes with a few cookbooks, the web awaits you. There are literally thousands of websites that not only have recipes to download, but whole cookbooks full of recipes...all for FREE. The forums and newsgroups abound in Q&A help and how-to's in better understanding how to use MC.

The interface is clean and sharp...doesn't look like a Win 3.1 interface but not quite XP. It will take time to learn all of the secrets of using Mastercook, but the HELP section is in the program with a PDF you can print that is a step-by-step guide. What a nice touch.

This program is great for those on diet plans, as you can make menu plans, shopping lists and search for foods with specific needs(calories, carbs, fat, fiber, etc.).

In conclusion, the planning and shopping lists have saved my family money and time in not buying what we don't need and letting us know what's for dinner without having to go and search for food. 15-20 minutes of planning on a Saturday will take care of planning for the whole week. Thanks to Mastercook!

I have been collecting recipes online since the early to mid 80's, and have purchased every single recipe management program I could find.

Some have complex features that I find difficult to use, and don't really need.

Some are only databases which you use to simply store and retrieve your recipes.

I always return to MasterCook. In my opinion it is the very best software for those of us who are home cooks.

It is very easy to use, and comes complete with thousands of recipes already entered in the program. In addition, you can enter your own recipes by typing them in.

There are hundreds of thousands of recipes available on the internet which you can import. It is able to import recipes which are formatted for other recipe management programs as well as those already formatted for MasterCook.

It is unique in that it is able to import recipes directly from any web page using a special web tool. You will not have to type them into the program, For example, if you find a coconut cake recipe on the Betty Crocker site, just import it into your program and it is yours, picture and all!

You can enter the number of servings you wish to prepare and the recipe is scaled to the correct amount of each ingredient. You can scale it down to a single serving or up to very many.

The feature I use most is nutrition calculation. Every recipe displays the amount of calories, Protein, fat, carbs, vitamins, and minerals in each serving. It also displays the %of daily nutrition provided, according to the daily calorie limit you set, (for example, you can chose 2000 calories per day, or 1800 cal etc)

Great for people on special diets such as low sodium, diabetic, low carb, or low calorie.

You can add pictures to each recipe if you choose.

Another great feature is the ability to publish your own cookbook, and print recipe cards. You can also print any recipe on a single sheet of paper or several recipes over many sheets.

I always print my recipe and take it to the kitchen with me.

There are dozens of different formats and designs which you can select to print your recipes. They really look great!

You can e-mail a recipe or group of recipes directly from within the program.

You can create a shopping list using your chosen recipes. It is arranged in order of the departments of your favorite store. (I do not use this feature, most recipe programs have it, and this is as good as the others but still too much trouble to use.)

There is a menu planner, and you can save menus for future reference.

It has a simple backup function so you will never loose your valuable recipe collection.

Using a "cookbook" format you can arrange your recipes into any collection. You can have as many "Cookbooks" as you wish. (I have several hundred - Some of my cookbooks: Chinese, Rachael Ray's Recipes, Bread Machine Recipes, Barbecue, Asparagus, Pork, My Family Recipes)

Each cookbook can hold 12,000 recipes.

It has a search function that can search a single "cookbook" file or every cookbook in your collection. You can search for recipes by title, or ingredient, or category, or source, or just about anything. It will immediately scan all your recipes and display a list of the recipes you chose.

You can save the source and author of your recipes Such as Rachael Ray March 2007, My Mother, Aunt Grace, Lady's Home Journal etc)

You can indicate categories for each recipe, and by selecting the category in a cookbook, only display those in that category. Favorite recipes from any group can be added to a list so you can access them frequently without scanning the entire cookbook collection.

It is a tremendous value and provides the most in features and ease of use.

If you are looking to organize your recipes or begin a collection I highly recommend MasterCook. You will love it!

I recommend that you buy version 9. Most earlier versions do not have the web tool, and you will find that most useful.

MasterCook Deluxe 9.0

I've had previous versions of Mastercook (versions 7 and under). What I really like is the Web Import Bar that is added to Internet Explorer. This feature (new in version 8) is really a time saver for snagging recipes off the internet. I've entered most of our "old" family recipes from my mom and grandmas. Once I've discovered the calorie content of some of the recipes, I've then researched via the internet on how to change the "bad" for "better" substitutes. I use another program to track my food intake, but it seems like I am always looking to Mastercook to determine nutritional values for homecooked items. It's easy to alter the ingredients, etc., based on what was added to a specific recipe. For example, I seem to rarely make chili the same way twice in a row. Since I want to make sure the nutrition information I'm logging is correct, I just open the recipe, make the adjustments and I've got the info. I'd definitely say this software is well worth the price. (I'd pay double for it actually.) While Sierra doesn't have a users forum anymore, there IS a Yahoo Group available for free. LOTS of great help is available. As others have noted, version 9 really isn't much different from virtually ANY of the previous versions and a user's guide is not available. Because of the Yahoo Group, I was able to download the version 6 manual. The instructions are all still good. The Help is version 9 is up-to-date, but I like to look at the manual as I go through the software.

I bought this software a couple of weeks ago with two main goals in mind: I wanted to keep all of my recipes in one place and I wanted an easy way to see the nutritional analysis of my own cooking.

Both of those goals were met by this product. But there is so much more to praise. I've been a software developer for over 20 years, and I am impressed with this product. Far from being like a shareware product that might ask a $2 donation as one reviewer wrote, MasterCook is a feature-packed, sophisticated program that does just about everything. I have now used it to import thousands of recipes, input my own, including photos, do various kinds of searches, add ingredients to the ingredient list with their nutritional info, edit recipes on the fly with the resulting nutritional analysis recalculation (very cool), and create new cookbooks and organize recipes the way I want. I've used the IE web tool to capture recipes online (ultra-cool), and have used the backup utility. Everything has worked without a hitch.

Here's a tip: My existing recipes were in a Word document. I decided to try saving it as an HTML document so I could use the web capture tool to import my own stuff into MasterCook. That worked just fine except that it wouldn't copy in the photos. I suspect that has something to do with the way Word does the conversion to HTML. If your recipes are already in HTML format, you should be able to use this tool to import, thereby avoiding a whole lot of manual entry.

Okay, now for the negative aspects. There are a few that I've found so far.

1. I have not found a way to import more than one file at a time. This is annoying. I have imported a lot of old meal master recipes in multiple text files. I had to import each file separately until I found another workaround. I used the DOS Copy command to copy multiple files into one file. Then I imported that one file into MasterCook. That worked most of the time.

2. The Toolbar with the Forward and Back arrows is at the bottom of the screen and I was not able to find a way to move it up top. I expect the back arrow to be at the top left of the screen as in a browser, so this is confusing.

3. Each cookbook has a limit of 12,000 recipes. I believe that if you try to import a file that puts it over that limit, the program closes itself without warning. At least, this is what happened to me a few times when I was trying to import large numbers of recipes to a cookbook that was full. Seems like it would be easy enough to check that as the import was working to prevent a crash.

4. The import process doesn't seem to allow you to manage duplicate recipes. Instead, it just gives them a unique title and imports them. I would have liked the option of skipping duplicates or somehow intervening to make a decision about them.

All in all, this product does everything I need and much more. I think I will be very happy with it for a long time. I would pay twice as much as the asking price for this one.

If you buy a NEW machine and it comes with Vista, DON'T buy this product. It may install on the new PC and even work with the HELP patch, but just try and get your own menus off of the old (under XP) PC on to the new box (with Vista). If you have spent hours and hours getting your recipes in to MC you will need to hang on to your old PC just to run MC. Not an pleasant option. If you have to re-enter all your recipes go find something else that is Vista compatible. BTW, requests to MC support only state that:

"This title is not Vista compatible. The restore function is one of the features that Vista broke within Mastercook."

So if you have Vista don't bother with this product.

I'm a fan of Mastercook, and purchased version 9.0 to replace an early version. I was pleasantly surprised by this new edition which seems to be more organized and have a slicker look. Its easy now to import recipes from the internet, and I like the search features. The downside, is this product really hasn't evolved that much, and aside from some additional recipes is essentially 8.0 with a 'new coat of paint.' Still if you like the MC software look and feel, you can't really beat this price. 5 Stars.

This is my first time buying the mastercook program. I first heard of it on one of the weight watchers sites. It seemed like a great way to organize my recipes I find online, so I bought it. I have to say I was a bit intimidated at first as I am not all that computer savy. The program is fairly easy to work though. I really like the feature that you import online recipes into the cookbooks. It's just a few clicks to do and so easy. I have printed out shopping lists and made cookbooks. I am by no means an expert yet, but using the help box I'm usually able to figure things out. I highly recommend this to anyone who gets a lot of recipes online and wants a place to organize them all.

I had a very old version (version 2) and was looking to upgrade. I first bought a different product that cost twice as much, but was disappointed with the many bugs in the software. I then read some reviews and bought this. Big improvement in the stability of the software as well as the features. I found it to be fairly intuitive to use.

I would like to change a few things, like being able to export to a CSV or delimited text format so I could compile my own recipe books externally. I would also like to be able to customize the views more, such as viewing certain fields as columns in the cookbook or recipe list view so I don't have to always go to the search function.

I have found the import function works quite well. I especially like the Internet Explorer browser plug-in so I can import recipes right off web pages without having to save them as text first.

Very nice software.

Addendum:
MasterCook 9 imported my old MC ver 2 cookbooks flawlessly and easily.

I've been using MasterCook for quite a while now and while I find it pretty simple to use and fairly good for organizing recipes, their customer service stinks really badly.

I've contacted them several times and never, not once, got a reply back. And one occasion was pretty traumatic. I "lost" a cookbook with over 500 recipes in it, many family heirlooms completely irreplaceable. MasterCook could see it but couldn't open it. I sent them at least a half dozen e-mails requesting help, but heard nothing, not even "we received your inquiry".

I continue to use their product but now keep hard copy, handwritten versions of all the recipes I enter because I don't want to lose any more.

I've been using Master Cook (v. 2) since 1995. It was ancient by today's standards and very DOS-ish, but it did what I wanted it to. My only reason for updating to a newer version was that I bought a new computer, one without a floppy disk drive. I'd read that Master Cook was out of print, so to speak, and was delighted to find it available through amazon.com.

It was easy to install and integrate with my collection of reciipes. (I also use it to keep crochet and knitting instructions - this is a versatile program!)

I made the mistake of jumping into the software without going through the tutorial - but have recovered, by using trial & error to figure out how to add recipes.

One excellent feature is the ability to download recipes from the internet directly into the program. Master Cook adds a little icon to the browser and makes it easy for me to transfer recipes into my files.

I recommend this program; it sure beats typing up 3x5" cards!