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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 96 customer reviews )
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69 of 72 found the following review helpful:
 Mastercook for Vista and Win 7 May 24, 2010
By D. C. Eaton
I ordered M.C. 11 as soon as available because I wanted to install on a Win 7 computer. It works well, but is not much different than previous versions. It is one of the best and cheapest cooking programs, but could easily use various improvements (I have version 11.0). For instance, to move a recipe from one cookbook to another, you must copy the recipe and then delete it (there is no Move command). Recipe pictures (when available) are very small and do not display with particularly high color accuracy. Help/Contents does not work, and clicking on Help/Getting Started only gets me to a introduction screen and no further! Valusoft has a download help file, but it also does not work. However (in Firefox), instead of saving it, open and it should work while you are on line. They claim a patch will eventually be available to fix the problem.
The reviewer below who rated it as 1 star partly because it has no voice is incorrect, although the feature is not well documented. If you are in "Recipe Edit" go to "Recipe Display". Look at the bottom right and you will see a cartoon icon of a person. Click on that and a balloon pops up with the first sentence of the recipe procedure. The program proceeds to read the first sentence. Press any key and it reads the next sentence. It does not read the recipe ingredients. It pronounces most words well, but has trouble with some - like "cumin" and "ancho peppers".
58 of 60 found the following review helpful:
 long-time user very disappointed Aug 20, 2010
By Janie
I have used Mastercook for years and have a large number of recipes and custom ingredients on MC8. On Aug 7 I purchased MC11 but today I gave up and uninstalled it. Why? With help of Yahoo Mastercook group I opened my MC8 cookbooks, but even with their suggestions could not transfer over my ingredient list. Even though this is supposed to be a new version, the ingredient list and nutritional calculation have not been updated, so the nutritional does not match the standard nutritional label (i.e. sugar calculation!). It's hard to see what MC11 offers that is worth entering all my ingredients again, so I have gone back to MC8.
41 of 43 found the following review helpful:
 Best Recipe/Cookbook Management Software Available Jan 10, 2011
By Misty
I have used this product for over 10 years. I have tried many other similar products and always quickly return to MasterCook. This is the first version designed to function in Vista and Windows 7. The previous versions were a bit tricky to get to run in the newer versions of Windows.
ValuSoft has an update/patch for this product. You should download it from their Tech. Support website.
If you have any questions or need help using MasterCook the members of the "MasterCook Discussion" group at YahooGroups are always quick to respond and help everyone in need. The group has been around for many, many years and has many active, experienced users happy to help others.
It is the ONLY program that allows you to manage collections of cookbooks. Other programs keep all of your eggs in one basket by keeping all of the data within one database file. This is fine if you only need to manage a few hundred recipes or so. However, if you enjoy collecting recipes as a hobby or plan to exchange cookbooks with others, nothing makes it easier than MasterCook. Just send your cookbook files (MC2/MCX) to your friends and family who use MasterCook 5 or greater. (Close the program and ZIP the files together and attach them to an email message.) The text and recipe pictures are included. No need to export first like other programs require. Having your cookbooks within collection folders allows you to organize them into specific groups on your computer as well. You could easily share an entire collection folder of cookbooks with other users.
MasterCook 11 can even open very old (MasterCook versions 4 and less) cookbook files (*.mcf). Just use the OPEN command from the File menu in version 11 and direct it to an older cookbook file (*.mcf). Version 11 will quickly convert it to its own format. Keep these new cookbook files (MC2/MCX) backed up on a regular basis.
You can quickly and easily transfer all of your cookbooks, menus, meal plans, shopping lists, Ingredient List, etc. from any MasterCook 5 or greater version too. Just copy the files (NOT THE FOLDERS) from the location of the older version and paste into the same folder in the newer version. For example, to transfer your Ingredient List with your custom-entered ingredients, find and copy the MC Ingredients.ing file in the MC TOOLS folder of an older version and paste it into the MC TOOLS folder of the newer version (MasterCook 11). Do the same with your cookbook files (*.mc2/*.mcx) that are within the COLLECTION folders on your computer. You can do this with all of your files (shopping lists, pantry lists, etc.) from a previous version 5 or greater product. Or, share the same with fellow MasterCook users.
MasterCook can create shopping lists for recipes, menus, or meal plans.
It will give you a nutritional analysis of your recipes, menus, or meal plans.
You can easily add your own ingredients to the program using the info from the Nutrition Facts labels of food products. Use the Ingredient List from the Tools menu.
You can create and print cookbooks directly from the program using the many print designs that come with the program or edit an existing one to create your own. No outside program is required. You can alter the position and placement of all the recipe parts. You can change their font types and styles, etc. You can even print to PDF (download a free PDF creator program) to share with those who don't have MasterCook.
You can easily transfer recipes from any source into the program by using the Import Assistant window.
You can import recipes easily from web pages using either the web import tool for Internet Explorer or Firefox; both are included in the MasterCook 11 update/patch.
You can add many images to one recipe. There is a place holder for the main photo, and you can insert a photo into every direction step (unlimited number of direction rows). You can even add a video clip into a recipe.
There are many advanced search features to locate recipes. You can even search for recipes by food types. For example, you can find recipes that include or exclude all dairy products or meat, etc. You can save these search parameters for later use or to share with others using MasterCook.
You can view nutritional info for each ingredient from the Recipe Edit using the Ingredient menu.
You can view daily, weekly, or monthly meal plans and share them with others. You can view their nutritional analysis as well.
There's a Tips (technique) section that allows you to add text, images, and video.
It has a pantry feature that allows you to keep track of what you have on hand and find recipes for the same.
There are many other features in MasterCook too.
35 of 38 found the following review helpful:
Not much new except re-enabling import feature Jun 05, 2010
By Penmouse
UPDATE DEC 12, 2011:
I have gone back to using MC 6, on a refurbed Lenovo laptop using Windows XP, as MC 11 crashed four times in one year. I lost several cookbooks during each event. MC seems to run better i.e. is stable on XP but not Win 7.
Also, there is no telephone or email customer support provided by the current software seller. Help is available snail mail only. This is a real minus as when you need help, you need help. On the up side MC 11 is relatively inexpensive and when it works it works! If you choose to use MC 11 I'd suggest performing regular back ups to an external media such as a flash drive (thumb drive) or CD.
I'm a longtime Mastercook user and I do love this program for ease of recipe input and preparing shopping lists. It's still my all time favorite recipe software programs followed by Mac Gourmet for the Mac.
That being written there is little new offered in this upgrade. Importing MC 9 recipes has been fixed. Previous versions of Mastercook lost this feature as you could only import recipes using the Import Assistant. You can now type in the five @ symbols and import recipes again. The addition of the talking instructions isn't much help as the "voice" reads one sentence at a time. If you are trying to cook using this feature I suspect your computer keyboard would get quite messy.
You can import previous cookbooks if you have them saved as MC 6 or 9 format. Anything before that does not seem to import into MC 11.
As always Mastercook features the ability to scale recipes, export grocery lists, develop meal plans and prepare shopping lists with ease. You can also track nutrition, what's in the pantry and food costs using Mastercook.
Highly recommend.
14 of 15 found the following review helpful:
Good, but not in Windows 7 64-bit Jul 06, 2010
By Kenneth D. Buckner
I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with IE 8.0. Had problems with MC 8.0 in Windows 7.0 so was excited when they came out with this version, which was supposed to be compatible with Windows 7.0.
It might be, as long as you stick with the 32-bit version, but it doesn't work with the 64-bit version of the software. At least, the Web Import Bar doesn't. The software is fine if you manually enter your data, but all I ever got was a blank panel where the data is supposed to be.
Finally uninstalled it and installed it in virtual Windows XP mode. Worked perfectly!
This answered the question, "What's wrong." It works in 32-bit XP, but not in a 64-bit OS.
Now I have to try installing it in my 32-bit Windows 7.0 test machine, to see how it handles it.
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