Welcome to our comprehensive Help base.  There are five ways of getting Help:

• Click on the Links below
• Click on the various help topics in the list to the left
• Read or Print the Help manual accessed through Start...Programs ...Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition
• Press F1 function key for specific help on all screens. Clicking on specific parts of a screen will provide information on that function, or press F1 elsewhere on the screen for more general information pertaining to that screen.
• Allow your mouse to hover over buttons, toolbars and menus for a brief description of their use.

For a quick overview click on one of the links below (These are just a few of the links)

Overview of the various Pocket Cook Programs
Pocket Cook Desktop Companion (Windows)
Pocket Cook Cookbooks
Searching for Recipes
Displaying Recipes
Screen Import of Recipes
Importing Recipes
Menu Plans
Shopping Lists
Nutritional Analysis

Transfer and Syncing to a Mobile Device
Transfer and Syncing to our Web Server

PDA Software (all Platforms)

Pocket PC Specific Software
Palm OS Specific  Software
Sony Ericsson P800/900 Specific Software

Pocket Cook Mobile
Pocket Cook Support Options

Purchasing Pocket Cook

Overview

Pocket Cook Web Edition comes in two versions

• Pocket Cook DeluxeWeb Edition
• Pocket Cook Standard Web Edition

The difference is that Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition comes with a superb PC Companion that runs under any version of Windows as well as support for most PDAs and Browser Phones, whereas Pocket Cook Standard Web Edition runs only on a Mobile Device.  HOWEVER all products also come with access to our web server (for an additional subscription) which provides access to Pocket Cook Mobile . This allows synchronization of recipes, shopping lists and menu plans with your own account on the Pocket Cook Web Server.

Pocket Cook Mobile allows you to view your recipes and plans at the office, at home, at a friends, on any PDA with a browser, and even via a WAP connection from over 260 different phones and PDAs. You can even view from all of these places at the same time. So you can plan your meals at home, your partner can create a shopping list at work, and then either (or both of you) can download it all to your PDA and/or Phone to take shopping with you, or to use in the kitchen as an electronic recipe book.
(Note however access is only via a browser or WAP connection on the PDA/Phone whereas Pocket Cook Standard Web Edition comes with special software that is installed on your PDA or Phone and works seamlessly with either the Web Server or Windows PC (or both) depending on the version.)

And with the Deluxe edition you can synchronize from PDA/Phone to PC or PDA/Phone to Web or even PC to Web!. Three way syncing. But just One product !

	Windows	PDA	Web
Pocket Cook Standard Web Edition	No	Yes	Yes
Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pocket Cook Mobile	No	No	Yes

Pocket Cook Web Edition (Deluxe and Standard) replaces all previous versions of Pocket Cook and offers all users the capability of using either a Pocket PC , a Palm OS device, Sony Ericsson P800/900 or a Nokia (or other make) Series 60 device with both a Windows Companion (Deluxe version only) and a Web Companion*. Users choose which type of PDA to use when they install Pocket Cook. The license allows any supported PDA to be used (though only one at a time), unless browsing via a PDA Web Browser or WAP browser in which case you can use almost any PDA or Mobile Phone.

This help file covers both products though some sections may not apply to some products.

* Web Synchronization requires a subscription to the Pocket Cook Web Server.
There is just the one product which supports all the PDAs above. The PDA is selected on installation and remains fixed until the product is re-installed.

Installing Pocket Cook

Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition is dependent on two major Microsoft components to run.

• MDAC
• .Net Framework 1.1

Almost all PCs with Windows other than Windows 98 or 95 will have a version of MDAC already installed. For other users it can be obtained directly from Microsoft. See http://www.pocketcook.net/pcdweInstall.htm for further information. Sometimes MDAC becomes corrupt or loses some of its files.  However 99% of users will normally have MDAC installed as even on Windows 98/95 installing Internet Explorer 5+ browser or Microsoft Office will also install MDAC. Our README file has further information on MDAC. You also need Jet 4.0 SP8 installed. Again www.pocketcook.net/pcdweInstall.htm    has full details. It is necessary to have at least MDAC 2.7 installed.

Pocket Cook is written using state of the art technology and as such it requires the latest version of Microsoft's .Net Framework (v1.1). Pocket Cook will automatically detect for this on installation, and download and install the latest version. Please make sure you are connected to the Internet when you install Pocket Cook.

If at any time you want to re-install Pocket Cook you can just rerun the installation program or go to the Control Panel/Add Remove Programs and click on change next to Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition. By doing this you have the option to run Repair which will replace any files that have been accidentally deleted. This is a good way of recovering the initial cookbook of 4000 recipes supplied with the full version of Pocket Cook.

The next step in installing Pocket Cook Deluxe is to start the PC Companion on the desktop. If this is the first time you will be prompted to choose the type of PDA you want to use. Once this is done your choice is locked. It can only be changed by re-installation. Depending on the type of PDA chosen you will be given further instructions on downloading the software for your chosen PDA. Further details are in the chapters under the relevant PDA heading. But in summary this involves downloading Booster the runtime engine used across all of our mobile platforms, and then downloading the software for the chosen PDA. We have chosen to require users to make this further download of the mobile software because all of the mobile platforms are available in one product, and to include them all would make the download too big.

Pocket Cook Standard Web Edition does not have a Windows Companion so please refer to the relevant PDA heading for more information on installation.

(Note for Win95/98/2000 users: You need to have Internet Explorer 5.01+ installed before starting the installation.)

Pocket Cook Windows Companion

The Pocket Cook Windows Companion provides a myriad of services and functions on the desktop of a Windows PC. Using the companion you can search for recipes, print recipes, email recipes and import recipe collections from the millions available on the Web. It is the Windows PC component to Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition.

You can sync recipes, menus and shopping lists to the Web or to your PDA. You can also create menu plans and shopping lists to share with others.

Because PDAs are limited in their ability to type and communicate using the Companion as the communications and input hub and simply download recipes, menus and shopping lists as required to your PDA, or upload them to the Pocket Cook Web Server where they can be viewed from any other PC.

Creating and Using Cookbooks

Recipes are held in files called cookbooks (.cbk). You can have as many cookbooks as you like and indeed we encourage you have to have multiple cookbooks rather than one large cookbook. Performance will be improved and  security enhanced by having multiple cookbooks.

We suggest you create you own cookbooks as needed and leave the provided recipes.cbk cookbook as it is. This means that when you install an upgrade there is zero chance of accidentally deleting any carefully prepared recipe collections as any new cookbooks are never updated or removed.

To create a new cookbook, click on the New toolbar button in the main screen or under File...New Cookbook

You will be prompted for a cookbook name. Enter a name (like "My Favorite Desserts") and click on Select Folder where you will be prompted to select the folder where that cookbook should be installed. Select the folder and the full path will be displayed. Click on Create Cookbook button to create that cookbook and then Close to close the window. If you have defined a default cookbook folder then Select Folder will be set there to that folder, though you can change the location if you wish.

The last five cookbooks are remembered and can easily be opened by clicking on them at the bottom of the File menu. In addition Pocket Cook always opens the last used cookbook when it starts up.

You can also click on Open to select an cookbook file (cbk) and again the initial folder is the one specified in Setup. You should not rename cookbooks if you have any recipes using that cookbook held in a menu plan. You can rename using Windows Explorer. You can also delete cookbooks with Windows Explorer.

Important Note:
There is an option, in setup, to specify a default location to store your cookbooks. Initially this is the Pocket Cook installation folder. We strongly recommend that you create a new folder (say in My Documents) and set this default in the Setup menu to this new folder. This makes it easy to backup, makes it more secure against accidental deletion and importantly allows you to use the Menu feature with multiple simultaneous cookbooks.

Checking for News and Updates

Pocket Cook now has a mechanism whereby important messages can be displayed at startup or on request by clicking on File...Check for Latest News

These messages are obtained from the Pocket Cook Web Server so you should have an active connection to receive them. Any messages displayed will be redisplayed every startup until you click the checkbox to stop displaying the latest message. However any later messages will be displayed as they become available.

Pocket Cook uses this mechanism to advise of important sales and technical announcements, and also to advise on newly released of software. The download URL will be displayed in the message. These announcements are the only ones you will get about new point releases (other than on our web site). Only the latest message is displayed. A full history of messages is available in the support pages of our web site.

Searching for Recipes

Pocket Cook Deluxe has very powerful searching capabilities. Recipes can be searched for by:

• Title
• Course
• Style
• Tags
• Favorites
• Keywords
• Ingredients
• Nutritional Content

and most of these at the same time!

The speed of search is mainly dependent on the number of recipes displayed. Larger cookbooks do not slow things down that much but displaying large numbers of recipes can.

Further details on searching can be found under the relevant topics.

Important Note:
The ability to have customizable courses (categories as they were called previously) and styles has been removed in this release. This is because trying to synchronize Web to PC to PDA with courses and styles that can differ on each is a major challenge. Instead we have introduced the concept of Keywords. These are explained more full in the Keyword Topic. Keywords are dynamic and recipes can have  many multiple keywords. If in the past you created a course called Grandma's Favorites then in this release you can simply create a keyword of the same name and assign it to those recipes. In addition we have introduced Tagging as a way of marking recipes in a user defined way.

Recipe Tags

Recipe tags are a great way of 'marking' recipes with a tag that has a meaning to the user but no intrinsic meaning to Pocket Cook. Each recipe can be marked with

• One of three tags (yellow, red or blue)
• Favorites tag.

That is any one recipe can only have a red, yellow or blue tag plus it can have a favorites tag.

The Favorite tag is intended for just that but can be used for anything you want. Some ideas for Tags are:

Selecting recipes (i.e. highlighting the title) is similar to tagging but tagging is permanent whereas the selection disappears on the next search.

All the tags associated with a recipe are displayed in the status bar of the Display recipe window.

• When browsing for recipes, tag those recipes you want to come back to and review later.
• Mark recipes for culling or moving to another cookbook
• Tag imported recipes for later checking
• Tag recipes for Printing or E-mailing
• Tag recipes to add keywords to

Anything else you need

Recipe Keywords

Recipe Keywords are user defined words that can be associated with a recipe and searched on. You create new keywords when you add them to a recipe and they are remembered for their next use. See Entering Keywords for more information. Up to four keywords can be searched on at a time by clicking on the keyword button on the main Recipes Search window. Initially there are only three keywords - Holiday, Entertaining and Low Fat.  When you search by keyword you are looking for recipes that have ALL of the keywords you specify and not just one of them. None of the provided recipes has any keywords associated with them so an initial search will yield nothing.

Searching for Recipes

Searching for recipes is easy yet very powerful. Every time you add another search option the list of recipes displayed narrows.

Let’s look at the options:

• Check the courses you want. This is the recommended way to speed up your searches as it eliminates many recipes quickly and efficiently.
• Check a tag or favorite and only recipes with that tag(s) are displayed.
• Click on Keywords and select up to four keywords the recipe must be associated with. You can Hide the selection area to make more space to view the recipes. Just type into any box and the box will be automatically filled with matching keywords.
• Click on Ingredients and enter up to 4 ingredients in the recipe. Select either Search Title or Search Ingredients as you wish. Checking Select Title makes the search more specific. e.g. If you are looking for recipes with strong emphasis on Basil its better to search in the title as there will be lots of recipes with basil as an ancillary ingredient. This option is  a great one to use to enter up to 4 items you have in your pantry and see what recipes use them. That is say you have some bacon, eggs, parsley and tomatoes then enter all of those and see the matches. Be sure to check Search Ingredients and not Search Title in this situation.
• Click on Style and check one or more required styles. There is no Hide button in the selection area (unlike the other 3 buttons). To hide the style selection, just click on the Style button again.
• Click on the Nutrition button to select recipes by nutritional content. Select first the Nutrient, then either > or < and then a number and click OK. (e.g. calories < 500 Up to two such nutrient filters can be specified. )

If the search time is too slow, then place fewer recipes in your cookbook and/or use the Course selection to narrow down only those courses you are interested in.

Important Note:
Note also if you have selected a search filter for one of the four options, after doing this, the color of the button changes to a Salmon color. This indicates that there is a search filter in place for that option.

Selecting Recipes

Recipes once displayed can be selected by clicking once on them. Multiple recipes can be selected by clicking them one at a time with the Ctrl key held down. You can select a range of recipes (all next to each other) by clicking the first one, holding the Shift key and clicking the last in the range.

Selected Recipes are deselected on the next search. To keep your selections use the Tag option in the menu to tag all selected recipes. This is like bending the corners of a recipe book.

The Search window can be enlarged or reduced by dragging on the window in the usual manner; doing this can result in many recipes being displayed simultaneously. Or, alternatively click on the Maximize button of the window to take advantage of all the available space.

Most of the options in the Toolbar apply to selected recipes (one or more).

The Select Toolbar button selects all displayed recipes. Click anywhere in the recipe area (other than a recipe) to deselect the recipes.

Double Clicking a recipe displays it.

Or right click on any recipe and a comprehensive context menu appears with all of the appropriate options.

Creating a New Recipe

Creating a new recipe is essentially editing a blank recipe. Most of the help for this topic can be found under Displaying and Editing Recipes. There are a few extra things to note:

• A recipe must have a title. Initially the title is 'New Recipe'.
• A recipe must have a course. Even if the course is to be Appetizer you must actually select a course.
• A recipe must have a serving quantity. This is initially set to 4. Change it as necessary.
• Everything else is optional

Exporting Recipes

Pocket Cook supports three export formats:

• Export to an HTML file
• Export to a Text File
• Export to a MasterCook file

Select the recipes you want to export, or tag the recipes, then search for recipes with just that tag and click on the Select toolbar button to select all displayed recipes.

Then click on Export in the Cookbook menu at the top (or under Recipes menu) and select the type of export you require. A file is then produced and you will be prompted for a file name and location.

HTML files are good for sharing with friends as they can be viewed and printed in any browser. They include pictures and better formatted text. Text files are good for occasions when HTML files are not suitable.

If you want to import the recipes into another collection either with Pocket Cook or another program use the Export to MasterCook option as this produces industry standard files that can be used anywhere.

Printing Recipes

Select the recipes you want to print, or tag the recipes, then search for recipes with just that tag, and click on the Select toolbar button to select all displayed recipes.

A number of options are available for printing recipes.

The content: Recipes are printed without pictures or nutritional information unless the check boxes for

• Print Nutritional Information
• Print Image if Available

are checked.

Then the format: There are three choices:

• One Recipe per Page (with or without a Picture and nutritional information)
• Two Recipes per page (no pictures or nutritional information)
• 4 x 6 Index card (no pictures or nutritional information

If choosing the last two it may pay to use the Printer Setup and Printer Font options to optimize what can be fitted in.

To do this click on Preview and the recipe will be displayed using the standard Windows Preview Tool. Zoom in and out and turn pages as you wish. If the recipes don't fit well, then you can select the font to be used and try the Preview again. Use Setup   as in the normal Windows way, to select the printer, paper source, margins and orientation.

When ready click on Print.

E-mailing Recipes

Select the recipes you want to email.

Click on Email and make your selection from

1. Font size
2. Using Outlook or other email program.

If using Outlook then an Outlook New Mail window will pop up with the selected recipes in it. Fill in the recipients and press Send .

If using Other Email Software, then you will need to enter your sending email address and the recipient email address and optionally a cc address. Your own email address is saved for the next time you send an email.
You also need to enter your smtp server address. This can be provided to you by your ISP and is needed by any email package. You will find it in the setup options of your email package as well. It is something of the form smtp.yourisp.com or sometimes mail.yourisp.com where your isp is the name of your Internet Service Provider. This value is also remembered for next time you email something.

There is an option to Add to Email which allows you to keep adding recipes to send later until such time as you are ready to send them, though you must send them before closing the Search window or they will be lost. Recipes are sent in HTML format with any pictures that may be associated with the recipes.

Important Note for Windows95/98 Users
Only Outlook email is supported directly for Win95/98 users. To send emails. Export the recipes you want to an HTML or Text file and send that file using your normal email package as an attachment.

Copy/Moving Recipes between Cookbooks

Select the recipes you want to Copy or Move.

In the Cookbook menu at the very top, Click on Copy or Move (the difference is that Move deletes the recipes from the source cookbook after doing the Copy)

Select the cookbook to copy/move to and the recipes are then transferred. No checks are done that the recipes may already exist. You can use the De-Dupe tool to check that.

Deleting Recipes

Select the recipes you want to Delete and then click on  Delete in the Cookbook menu at the top. Confirm that you wish to delete when prompted and the recipes will be removed from the cookbook.

Tagging Recipes

Select the recipes you want to Tag. Then click on one of the three colored tag buttons in the toolbar menu or the Fav button. This will then associate the tag with those recipes.  To clear the association click on the small arrow next to the tag you have chosen and then click on Clear in the drop down menu. Tagged recipes display the tag icon next to them. If  PDA and Web or Fav tags are used only the colored tags are shown. Once the colored tag is removed any other tags are shown. You can use the search filters to only display recipes with certain tags.

The tags (all the tags) associated with a recipe are displayed in the status bar of the Display recipe window.

Important Note:
You must select recipes before clearing them. Clear will not remove the tags from all tagged recipes only tagged and selected recipes.

Adding Recipes to Shopping List

Select the recipes you want to add to a Shopping List.

Then click on the S/L button in the toolbar. Select an existing Shopping List to add all the ingredients in all the selected recipes to by double clicking the shopping list. All of the recipe ingredients will be added to that shopping list. Clicking on the S/L button adds to the current shopping list. To select another shopping list click on the small arrow next to the S/L button.

This may be fine in many situations but you can end up with lots of basic or staple ingredients added when you don't want them  e.g. salt, pepper, flour, sugar etc.

An alternative is to view the recipe and click on any required ingredient lines in the far left column where the small arrow (triangle) appears. This will add that line only.

Important Note:
When ingredients are added to a shopping list, only the part up until the first comma is extracted and saved in the shopping list. This is normally fine if ingredient lines are properly constructed e.g. Apples, cut and peeled .  But occasionally there can be misinterpretations e.g. Almond, Essence will extract Almond and not Almond Essence. Be aware of this and ensure that an ingredient line has all the key parts before the first comma and that after the comma only preparation words appear e.g. cut, chopped, peeled, washed. This is also very important to get correct nutritional analysis of an ingredient.

Add Recipes to a Menu Plan

Whilst viewing the list of recipes in a cookbook, or viewing previously tagged recipes, open the menu screen so it shows as a separate window. Left click on a recipe title and drag it over to the menu screen and drop it onto a meal. The menu will open up automatically to allow you to do this. You can only add recipes to a meal and not to a day. Any additions are automatically saved.


Set Recipes to a Specific Course

Select the recipes you want to specify as being of a certain course. Then click the Course option in the Cookbook menu at the top, and in the selection box below select the course you want to associate with that recipe. Once you check the course that association is made.

Setting Recipes to a Specific Style

Select the recipes you want to specify as being of a certain style. Then click the Style option in the Cookbook menu at the top, and in the selection box below select the style you want to associate with that recipe. Once you check the style that association is made.

Locating Duplicate Recipes

This function will locate duplicate recipes in either a simple or a complex manner.
Click on the Locate Duplicate Recipes option in the Cookbook menu at the top, and a window will pop up asking your whether you want to

• Compare Titles Only
• Compare Titles and Ingredients

Make your choice. The latter is more thorough but slower. Then click on De-Dupe and the process will start. It can take some time. One copy of any Duplicate Recipes are highlighted allowing you to delete them simply by clicking on the Delete Selected Recipes option in the Cookbook menu, or to examine them first. It would probably be best to tag them once they are highlighted if you wanted to examine them as viewing a recipe may cause the highlights to be removed.

If you compare by Title and Ingredient Pocket Cook may not highlight all the duplicates if there are more than 2 recipes with the same Title. Keep running the option until they are all removed.  Locating by Title will always highlight all recipes with the same Title.

Important Note:
De-Duping is done for all displayed recipes. There is no need to select recipes for this function. It is not done on all the recipes on the cookbook unless all the recipes in the cookbook are displayed.

Screen Import of Recipes

This function allows easy importing of recipes that are normally in a non structured manner though it can accept MasterCook mxp and MealMaster mmf recipes as well.

First, cut and paste in the recipe(s) you want to import from the web or an email or a file. Any html formatting is removed leaving just the bare recipe.

Then there are two choices to be made. If you have entered Mealmaster or Mastercook (mxp) recipes just click on Import and all of the recipes will be imported.

Otherwise you then import a recipe at a time.

Highlight the Recipe Title and click on the blue button on the right labeled Recipe Title. You will notice that the text you highlighted changes color to the same blue as the Recipe Title button. (You must have a title)

All of the rest can be highlighted in the same manner or left as you require. Then simply click on Import to import that recipe into the current cookbook. The Course/Style field is any list of words separated by a comma. If there are no commas between the words you have highlighted add a comma. If Pocket Cook can't identify the type of course then it will add it to an Imported course which you can then search on and manual change or automatically change with the Course button on the toolbar in the Recipes window.

When you click on Import you will be asked to enter the number of servings for that recipe.

To clear any highlighting click on the Un-highlight button and to clear the entire input box click on Clear Box. Its that easy!

(Note: if you have a file with MealMaster or Mastercook recipes, it is better to use the Import Recipe function as this also provides an error report.)


Importing Recipes

Pocket Cook will import most common recipe collection formats. These are MealMaster mmf files, MasterCook mxp files (MasterCook Version 4/5) and MasterCook mx2 files (MasterCook Version 6/7). Pocket Cook will identify the format automatically. All the recipes in the one file must be of the same format.

First select the file to import. There is a default location that can be setup under the Setup menu or choose from anywhere on your PC.

The Import screen then appears. You can...

• Choose whether to nutritionally analyze the recipes as they are imported (slight performance decrease)
• Tag recipes with a red, yellow or blue tag for later analysis or editing.

Additionally for larger imports we recommend you import recipes into a new cookbook. Once they are edited you can easily Move them to another cookbook.

Click on Import to start.

The recipes will then be imported and counted as they are extracted. Not all recipes extracted will be imported if Pocket Cook finds errors in their structure. When it is finished, you can click on the Report button that appears and view any recipes that did not import properly.

This report shows the recipe name and the technical error reported by Pocket Cook. Generally speaking its usually enough to edit the import file and extract that recipe into a new text file. Then carefully look at it, paying particular attention to the ingredient lines. Make sure the ingredient quantities are numeric for example. There are published details of how a MealMaster or MasterCook import file should appear. If all else fails try copying and pasting it into the Screen Import function and try from there. (not MX2 recipes though!)


Displaying a Recipe

To display a recipe double click on any recipe title in the Search window. A new window appears with details of the recipe. You can edit this recipe directly and also print it, email it, add it to a shopping list or Menu plus lost of other things. The Editing a Recipe topic covers the various recipe fields in more detail.

At the bottom of the recipe window in the status bar is displayed the current active shopping list and menu.


Editing a Recipe

All aspects of a recipe are editable. Here they are one at a time.

Recipe Title - Place the cursor into the recipe title (white text on blue background) and make what ever changes you want.
Directions - Enter what you like here.
Ingredients - see Entering Ingredients
Course and Style - select from the options in the drop down boxes. Type the first letter to go directly to words starting with that letter.
Keywords - see Entering Keywords Topic
Servings -   Enter any integer.
Timing - Enter anything you like but it is intended to record Preparation Time and Cooking Time e.g. Prep Time 45mins, Cook 1hr at 375F
Notes - Enter anything you like but suggestions are for Recipe Source, Accompanying Wines e.g. From Delia Smith Summer Cooking, Wine Chenin Blanc
Nutritional Analysis - see Nutritional Analysis Topic

When you have finished making changes, click on Update Recipe to save the changes. Nothing is saved unless you do that.


Entering Keywords

Keywords are displayed in the dropdown box on the Recipe window. You can assign as many keywords as you like to a recipe.

To add a keyword to a recipe use one of two methods:

• Just type it in the dropdown box.
• Right Click on the keyword dropdown box and a small window pops up with all of your previously entered keywords. Select a keyword and it is placed in the keyword drop down box. Hit enter to accept it.

To delete a keyword, press the delete key (or Del key) while the keyword is displayed in the dropdown box. To delete unwanted keywords that were entered previously (perhaps because of a spelling error), right click to get the keyword box up and then select the keyword you want and again hit the delete key.

Entering Ingredients

There are three aspects to editing ingredients:

• Changing existing ingredient line
• Deleting an Ingredient Line
• Adding a new Ingredient Line

Changing Ingredients

Changing an Ingredient line is simply a matter of placing your cursor on the item to be changed and make the change. Units can only be selected from the list provided. If you want to use a special unit, select the 'x' unit and type the unit as part of the ingredient. e.g.   1 x Truffle Shavings or 1 x bucket Oats. If you enter a non numeric quantity it will be removed on Update.  Quantities can be entered as

• Integers e.g. 3
• Decimal numbers  e.g. 4.5
• Fractions e.g. 1/3  or 1 7/8
• and even Exponential e.g.. 1.3e2

Numbers are normally rounded to the nearest 1/20 of a unit and when displayed as fractions rounded to the nearest fraction. Sometimes if you change the quantity the unit will change also. e.g. changing 1 tablespoon flour to 8 tablespoon flour will change it to ½ cup flour

When adding/editing an ingredient it is recommended that the ingredient has all the key parts before the first comma and that after the comma only preparation words appear e.g. cut,chopped, peeled, washed. This is also very important to get a correct nutritional analysis of an ingredient.

To put in a sub-heading start the ingredient field with ***. i.e. *** SAUCE ***. This will force Pocket Cook to highlight the line and to treat it as a comment. This is not compulsory but the *** approach is visually better.

Deleting an Ingredient

Select a row by clicking in the far left gray column. A small arrow (triangle) appears on that row. Press the delete key and  the row disappears.

Adding an Ingredient

To insert an ingredient line other than at the end, Select a row by clicking in the far left gray column. A small arrow (triangle) appears on that row. Right click and a small popup menu appears. Click on Insert Row. A blank row is inserted which can now be edited. Or goto the bottom of the ingredient list to the row that has a * in the gray column and add an ingredient line there.

Nutrient Analysis

A powerful feature of Pocket Cook is the ability to nutritionally analyze recipes to display 9 different nutrient levels.

In order to get the best results it is important to understand how the nutritional analyzer engine works. It uses a fuzzy logic algorithm that attempts to rate all the possible matches out of 10 and selects the one with the best score.
The nutrients for most common ingredients are held in a database developed by the USDA. The job of the Nutritional Analysis  is to match the ingredients in the recipe with the ingredients in the Nutrient table. This is a complex task but it can be made easier if you follow these rules:

1. As far as possible put the most important word first with any qualifying details after a comma.
2. e.g. Do not say "Salt Roasted Pork" but "Pork, salted and roasted" or "Potatoes, washed and scrubbed" and not "Washed and Scrubbed Potatoes"
3. Only the first three words are analyzed so the key word for matching has to be one of these. More emphasis is put on words closer to the beginning. Remaining words are used to qualify the main ingredient where there are several choices for an ingredient, e.g.. Cream comes in Whipped Cream, Sour Cream, ordinary Cream, etc.
4. Many ingredients are both generic or specific. Both types can be used, eg. 'Cheese' or 'Parmesan Cheese' or 'Cheese, Parmesan' or 'Cheddar Cheese' but again the structure that will have the best success is 'Cheese, Parmesan' as the key word is first.
5. Some measurement quantities are impossible to work out, e.g.. A handful of basil or 2 cans of soup. Pocket Cook guesses what a can is but we all know there are different sized cans. Similarly descriptions like '1 fillet of Cod' or "2 Steaks' or "1 chicken, cut up" will all have room for misinterpretation.
6. Some small ingredients, especially spices, are ignored in the calculation.

After you click on Calculate , the nutritional analyzer goes to work and attempts to match each ingredient with something in its database. A Report is produced showing how successful the matching was. (Click on Report )
As an alternative you can always enter the nutrient levels yourself into the edit boxes. Remember though if you click on Calculate it will overwrite these values, but they won't be lost unless you also click on Update recipe.

Nutritional Analysis Report

After each calculation is performed a report is produced which is displayed by clicking on the Report button next to the Calculate button.

Look at rewording or changing items that match poorly (or not all) in order to make these a better match. Sometimes you will see a match that is not quite as you would expect. For example Walnuts are matched quite often with Nut Meat . This is because Nut Meat and Walnuts are effectively synonyms and have the same nutritional values. If you are unsure of a match, go to the Nutrition button on the main window toolbar and enter the ingredient in. It will show all the possible matches in much fuller detail.

In our experience there is usually a match possible between an ingredient and the USDA database. Its just a matter of putting the most important words at the beginning of the ingredient as the nutritional analyzer puts a higher weight on the first three words.

Resizing a Recipe's Servings

There are two options to resize a recipe:

• Change the number of serves (i.e. change the number of servings the recipe will produce.)
• Resize with a multiplier

For the first enter a number of servings as a valid decimal number. (i.e. it does not have to be an integer)

For the second, check the Resize with Multiplier button and enter a multiplier as a decimal. A fractional amount e.g.. 0.25 will decrease servings and a value greater than 1 will increase servings. If nothing seems to happen make sure that you have checked the Resize with Multiplier button.

Each method of resizing is essentially the same. Resize with a multiplier is more precise. That is if you had a recipe with 5 servings. You could either change it to 7 servings, or use a multiplier of 7/5 or 1.4.

Changing Display Units and Style

You can set up a default value for whether you want Metric or US/Imperial units in the Setup menu.

However you can also change it for an individual recipe if you wish. Click on SI for US/Imperial units or Metric for metric. Only weights and volumes are changed. i.e. if a unit is a cup then it is left unchanged.

Similarly you can display ingredients with fractions or as decimal quantities by clicking on either ½ button or the Dec button.

Adding a Picture to a Recipe

Pictures can be associated with recipes. In a departure from previous versions of Pocket Cook, pictures are not stored as part of Pocket Cook databases or cookbooks. Instead a link is made to a folder anywhere on the user's PC. It is best to be consistent and use the same folder to store pictures in but this is only a suggestion.

To associate a recipe, click on the Picture button in the recipe toolbar. You will be asked to select an image file containing the picture you want to associate with your recipe. Once you have selected the picture it is displayed in the recipe window.  Remember to Update Recipe to save the link!

Each time you view the recipe from now on the picture will be displayed. Click on the Hide button at the top right to remove the picture to make more space for the directions.

To remove a picture association, right click on the picture and select the Remove Picture menu option. Then click on Update Recipe to save.

Adding Contents of Recipe to a Shopping List

Simply click on any required ingredient lines in the far left column where the small arrow (triangle) appears. This will add that line only to the current active shopping list. This is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the recipe window.

To add the entire recipe click on the S/L button in the toolbar menu. The ingredients will be added to the current shopping list. (this is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the window). Clicking on the S/L button adds to the current shopping list. To select another shopping list click on the small arrow next to the S/L button.

Important Note:
When ingredients are added to a shopping list, only the part up until the first comma is extracted and saved in the shopping list. This is normally fine if ingredient lines are properly constructed e.g. Apples, cut and peeled .  But occasionally there can be misinterpretations e.g. Almond, Essence will extract Almond and not Almond Essence. Be aware of this and ensure that an ingredient line has all the key parts before the first comma and that after the comma only preparation words appear e.g. cut, chopped, peeled, washed. This is also very important to get correct nutritional analysis of an ingredient.

Adding a Recipe to a Menu Plan

To add a recipe to a the current active menu plan, click on the Menu button on the toolbar. A new window appears on the far right of the screen (you may need to resize to see it).

Select the day by clicking on the + to open it up and then select the meal by double clicking on it. The recipe will be added to the bottom of the meal list. A right click menu is available to make other changes. See Menu Plans for more details.

If the cookbook you are using is not in the default location for cookbooks then double clicking on the recipe when viewing the menu will not display the recipe. ONLY cookbooks in the default cookbook location will display recipes from a Manu.

Close the Menu Plan window by clicking on the X at the top right.

Emailing, Printing and Deleting a Recipe

A single recipe can be emailed, printed and deleted. See Email topic, Print Topic and Delete Topic for more details.

Navigating through Recipes

Whilst you are viewing a recipe you can navigate through the recipes either side of it in the Search window. Click on the forward and back arrows to see all of the displayed recipe titles in the View Recipes Window.

Tagging a Recipe

A recipe can be tagged with yellow or red or blue tag and a Favorites tag. See Tagging Recipes for more information.

A recipe can also be tagged for transfer to the Web Server or to your PDA. see Transfer to Web and Transfer to PDA for more information.

The tags (all the tags) associated with a recipe are displayed in the status bar of the Display recipe window.

To remove a tag, click on the corresponding button in the toolbar. It acts like a toggle switch. One click to add it. Another click to remove it.

Hiding Information on Recipe

To hide a picture and nutritional information to make more space for the Directions, click on the Hide button at the top right of the toolbar on the Display Recipe window.

Menu Plans

A Menu Plan is an organized structure of days and meals that you can assign recipes to. The menu plan can be structured in any way you like, with as many or as few days, and what ever meals you like - 6 per day in Hobbit style or only Dinner. You can have unlimited number of menu plans. The way to use them is to create a series of plans eg. weekly or monthly and assign recipes and meals to a plan. Then you can re-use that plan at any time by making it Active . That way as you prepare menu plans over the months and years you can easily re-activate a plan, make a few changes to it and then if you wish automatically generate a shopping list for it. For example you could create an Easter Week plan and then re-use it from year to year with what ever tweaks you would like.

When you create a menu plan you can base it on one of our three templates or you can 'clone'  an existing plan and use that structure. At any one time only one plan is Active . That is recipes added to it from the Display Recipe window will automatically go to that plan. When you edit a plan you can of course choose any of your saved plans.

See Creating a Menu Plan

Creating and Managing Menu Plans

Menu Plans are created and managed under the Menu Plan menu at the top of Pocket Cook.

To create a new menu plan, click on Create a Menu Plan . Enter the plan name (anything you like as long as it has not been used before, eg. Week 23.

Then either choose one of the Pocket Cook templates or select an existing Menu Plan to clone and check the Clone Displayed Plan checkbox. Then click on Create and the plan is created. Any plan can be customized after it has been created.

Using the Menu Plan menu at the top you can also Rename a plan or Delete a Plan.


Displaying a Menu Plan

The easiest way to display a menu plan is to click on the Menu button in the main toolbar. The active menu plan is displayed, or just an empty window if there is no active plan.

If there are no plans they will be need to be created as in Creating a Menu Plan .

Otherwise click the Open button to display a list of available menu plans. Double Click on one to open it and make it active. The plan can be expanded fully at the touch of the button titled Expand on the toolbar, or collapsed to just the days by clicking on the Collapse button.

Select any item (the term we will use for  a day, meal or recipe/meal) and right click it. A popup menu appears with the available options. You can remove an item, insert an item, name an item and add another day. You cannot add any items to a recipe or meal. That is the depth of the tree is fixed at three levels. Double click on any recipe to view it. If a recipe cannot be viewed or it was entered directly from this window then it appears in light orange.

Click on Update button to save any changes. Nothing is changed if the Update button is not clicked.


Adding a Menu Plan to a Shopping List

You can add a complete menu plan to a shopping list with the click of a button. You have two choices. Either click on New S/L button and new shopping list will be created with the same name as the Menu Plan (and overwritten if it already exists), or click on Add S/L and you can then choose which Shopping List to add the Menu Plan to.

That's all there is to it!


Printing a Menu Plan

To print a complete menu plan (the plan is shown in a pruned form missing meals for which there are no meals), just click on the Print button and select your Printer and then click on OK. You can print multiple copies by adjusting the Copies box.

Nutritionally Analyzing a Menu Plan

This option allows you to see at a glance the total or average nutritional values of your planned meals by day and in total. Use this to ensure that your plan meets with your dietary needs.

Initially the analysis window shows Calories, but just click on any of the other nutrients to see the figures for that one.

Its the easiest way yet to know what sugar you are eating, how much fiber you are consuming, or whether you have exceeded the calorie' limit for a day or for the plan.

Shopping Lists

A shopping list is a list of items added from your recipes, that can be sorted in various ways and printed and manipulated. A shopping list is organized by aisle and by category. An Aisle is the area in a supermarket where the item is found. A category is the type of food e.g.. Meat or Dairy.

Shopping List items are displayed sorted by Aisle as that way all the items that you purchase in that aisle are likely to be together.

see Displaying a Shopping List for more information.

Creating and Managing Shopping Lists

Shopping Lists are created and managed under the Shopping List menu at the top of Pocket Cook.

To create a new menu plan, click on Create a Shopping List . Enter the list name (anything you like as long as it has not been used before, eg. Week 21.

Then click on Create and the list is created.

Using the Shopping List menu at the top you can also Rename a list or Delete a list

Only one shopping list can be Active at a time. This is the default list that is used.

Displaying a Shopping List

The Active shopping list is displayed when the Shopping button is first clicked. If another list is required click on the Open button and select a shopping list by double clicking on it. This makes that list the Active one.

The shopping list is displayed initially sorted by aisle. An aisle is the area of a supermarket where you will find that item. It can be set up as required using the Edit Ingredients and Aisles option. Ingredients have an aisle associated with them and a category. The category is displayed as an image e.g.. A cow for Dairy products and a chicken for Poultry. Click on the column header to sort the list by that column. i.e. Click on Item at the top right of the list will re-sort the list alphabetically by Title.

When item has been purchased check the box on the far left to indicate this.

Shopping Lists can be edited. see Editing a Shopping List.

Editing a Shopping List

There are three aspects to editing a shopping list

• Changing existing Item
• Deleting an Item
• Adding a new Item

Changing an Item

Click on the part of the item to change. The image can't be changed directly see Edit Ingredients and Aisles
for more information on associating an image/category with an item.

The Aisle must be a number between 1 and 98. (99 is reserved for the Other aisle i.e.. not defined). There is no need to enter this for most items.
The Quantity must be a valid decimal number (not a fraction such as 1/2).  Otherwise the Quantity box is highlighted in red and the cursor restricted from moving from it.
The Unit is selected from the dropdown choices.
The Ingredient can be anything you like. After entering it, the item is checked against the Ingredient database and if present its allocated aisle and image are placed automatically into those fields. If no match is found the Other Aisle is used (Aisle 99) and the Other image used. The Aisle can be overridden if required.

If unsure what the various images represent they can be consulted in the Edit Ingredients and Aisles option.

Deleting an Item

Select a row by clicking in the far left gray column. A small arrow (triangle) appears on that row. Press the delete key and  the row disappears.

Adding an Ingredient

Go to the bottom of the shopping list to the row that has a * in the gray column and add an ingredient line there. You can resort the list by clicking on any of the column headers or using Condense . There is no need to add an aisle (unless you want to) as once the ingredient is added those details will be filled automatically by looking up the Ingredient database.

Once a shopping list has been changed, click on Update to save the changes.

Print a Shopping List

To print a complete Shopping List , just click on the Print button and select your Printer and then click on OK. You can print multiple copies by adjusting the Copies box.

Any items that have been bought are marked with small x next to them.

Choosing Display Style for Units

The default display style for units as set up in the Setup menu will initially determine whether Metric or SI units are used. This can be changed by clicking on either SI   for US/Imperial units or Metric.

Removing Items from a Shopping List

The Clear button in the Shopping List toolbar will clear the entire shopping list. Clicking on Remove button will only removed checked items.

Condensing Items in a Shopping List

As a shopping list is created, identical items will be added that need to be merged together to make the list useable. For instance you might have

1 cup flour
4 tablespoons flour
5 oz flour

Clicking on the Condense button will combine all three of these together to make one item. The Ingredients database is used to work out the relativities between say 1 cup flour and how much it weighs. Not all items can be successfully combined  e.g.

3 small apples
2 large apples

cannot be combined.

Edit Ingredients and Aisles

This option allows experienced users to edit the shopping ingredient database and also to add new items. This database is used to facilitate automatic combination of ingredients with different units. E.g. 1 c flour and 6 oz flour.  Liquid measures are easy to convert but a cup of a solid item weighs differently depending on what it is. We have provided factors for most common items. If you wish to fine-tune them or add your own items then you will need to specify the factor . A factor of zero causes the combine function to ignore the quantity. The factor is the weight in grams of a cup of that ingredient. You can use the Nutrition option accessible from the main menu to discover common conversion formulae.

Type is either L for Liquid or S for Solid.

This option is also used to setup the aisles where you normally find an ingredient. Select a number from 1-98. 99 is reserved for 'Other'.  The aisles that you would use are either the standard Pocket Cook ones, or you could go through each item and assign the aisle from your usual supermarket.

A category is also associated with an ingredient. This is selected from the drop down list. An image is associated with each category. These images can be previewed in Category Icon Help at the bottom the window.

Editing the Ingredient database is done in the normal manner. that is change an ingredient line and click on Update to Save. Click on a row in the first gray column and click on Delete to delete the item. Or go to the bottom and in the row with a * in the gray column enter a new item. Entering an invalid Aisle will assume you mean the Other aisle and 99 is inserted. Entering an invalid Factor will assume that you don't want to use Factor and a zero will be inserted.

Nutritional Database

A full analysis of 17 nutrients is available by using this function. As well as that, a useful conversion between various measures is given.

Enter all or part of an ingredient. The Ingredient lookup box will display the best match as you type. For example you can enter Cheese , or Cheese, Feta or just Che.

All of the items in the USDA database starting with the input letters are displayed once you click on Lookup.

The full analysis for the first displayed item is displayed on the right and you can view any of the others by clicking on that item. an asterisk (*) next to an item means that in an ingredient lookup as used by the Nutritional analysis program when analyzing a recipe would select that item. More than one ingredient with an * indicates that they are synonyms that have the same nutritional content. They exist to assist in the matching process of ingredient to USDA database item.

Most of the nutrients are self explanatory. Refuse is the percentage of the ingredient that has no nutritional value e.g. bone, skin etc. It is used in the nutrient calculations.

Looking up Ingredients

Enter all or part of an ingredient. The Ingredient lookup box will display the best match as you type. For example you can enter Cheese, or Cheese, Feta or just Che.

Pocket Cook Setup

There are three tabs for Setup.

• PDA Settings
• Locations
• General

For PDA Settings you need to enter the assigned User Name and password you selected when you registered on the Pocket Cook Web Server. This is not your support forum username and password but the one to subscribe to the various mobile services accessible from the Member's area on the Pocket Cook Web server.

For Locations you can specify (or change) the locations where cookbooks, pictures or imported files are held. For Pictures and Imported files this will cause the file open dialog to start at this folder first but you can open files from any other part of your PC if you wish.

For the Cookbook location, Pocket Cook will allow you to open files from other  folders on your PC BUT it will only look in the default location when it is looking for cookbooks to synchronize. We recommend you keep all of your cookbooks in one folder separate from the main Pocket Cook folder. That way there is no risk that uninstallation or re-installation will delete your cookbooks. If you change your default cookbook location you will need to manually copy using Windows Explorer any cookbooks from the old to the new location.

For General , you can specify whether you want SI Measurement units or Metric Units. This affects the way recipes and shopping lists are displayed.

Click on Close will Save all settings.

Conversion Tables

Click on any of the colored buttons to see the various conversion tables.


Compact a Cookbook

With continual use, adding recipes and  deleting recipe a cookbook can grow larger than it needs to be. Running this option will compact unused space and improve the performance of searches. If you get strange problems when accessing a cookbook, it is worth running the Compact option to see if that fixes the problem. Compact a Cookbook is found under Tools in the main menu.

Select a cookbook when prompted. You cannot compact recipes.cbk.

Converting V5 Recipe Database

If you have previously been using Pocket Cook Deluxe V5 you may have built up a recipe collection you want to transfer across to Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition.

This utility will read v5 recipe databases and create a cbk file in the default recipe location.

There are two main differences between recipes in V5 and the current version.

The current version has Sugar as a nutrient. This will be set to zero, but it can be recalculated easily when viewing a recipe.

Secondly, recipe pictures are not held in a separate database. You can store pictures anywhere on the PC. For this reason it is necessary to manually assign pictures in this release after conversion. It is not possible to convert the V5 Picture database.

Your original V5 recipe database is not changed or deleted on conversion.

Edit Measurement Units

Be careful in editing the existing units and especially in deleting them. Follow these rules:

• All unit abbreviations and the names must be unique. (Case is ignored)
• Abbreviations must be one or two letters only.

While you may know what measurement units you want and need for your own recipes, when you import recipes they may not correspond. Most recipe collections are based on MealMaster or MasterCook, and the units we provide with the initial installation will work with 99% of those. If you remove some units then imported recipes depending on those units may not display as you would like - the unit will not be shown in the unit column but in the ingredient column.

Pocket Cook 'knows' about certain units and knows how to scale those units in a smart manner. Units you add will not scale in a smart fashion.

To add a unit, go to the bottom of the list and in the line with the * type in a new unit.
To delete a unit, highlight the row by clicking in the leftmost column, then click on the delete key.
To edit a unit simply make the change you require. (NOT recommended)

Then click on Save to save your changes.  The sync action will be set for a transfer to the PDA, but if it isn't then set it manually to Transfer PC->PDA so that the change propagates to your PDA/Phone.

Transfer and Synchronization to Mobile Devices

Whilst there are big differences in the way the different PDAs synchronize recipes and other Pocket Cook files, there is a lot in common. Please refer (below) to more specific information for your PDA.

Synchronization involves transferring data between the PDA and PC according to the rules defined in the Synchronization option in the PDA menu. The data that can be synced  are the various cookbooks (as long as they are stored in the default cookbook folder!), shopping lists, menu plans, and Keywords, Ingredients and Units. With a slight variation depending on the PDA, you can set for most of these files an action that says to

1. Ignore this file for any syncing
2. Transfer only from PC to PDA  i.e. PC overwrites PDA
3. Transfer PDA to PC i.e. PDA overwrites PC
4. Full two way syncing

Syncing involves setting the action you require for the various Pocket Cook cookbooks and files. Then on the Palm you sync using Hotsync in the normal way. On non Palm devices, you click on the sync button to start a sync. See the specific details for your PDA below.

Some Important Points:

• Keywords, Ingredients and Units only transfer PC to PDA and any other settings are ignored.
• On non Palm PDAs, deleted records are ignored on both PC and PDA. They remain deleted, but deleting a recipe on the PDA does not force a deletion on the PC of the corresponding recipe.
• Shopping Lists and Menus are synced but only in their entirety and not in their detail. That is a new shopping list will be synced but adding new ingredients to a shopping list or new recipes to a menu on the PDA will not cause those entries to be synced across to the PC.
• When a cookbook is transferred or synced down to the PDA, a file with the PDA File name you originally specified is created. It is not necessarily the same name as on the Desktop.

See also:

Syncing a Pocket PC
Syncing a Palm
Syncing Sony Ericsson P800/P900
Syncing Series 60

Synchronizing a Pocket PC

When you first start the Sync with a Pocket PC option in the PDA menu, you are presented with a new window with the Sync button grayed out and three other buttons.

At the bottom of the screen on the right of  the  status bar you will see the current status of your Activesync connection. It must be connected before you can proceed further. Once connected:

PDA Info button will show you some technical information about your Pocket PC that might be necessary if you require support.

Cancel button will return you to the main menu or if you are in the process of syncing will cancel the sync in an orderly manner. That is: it will finish the file/cookbook it is on before canceling.

Generally you will click on the Assemble button and after a few seconds you will see information presented in two tables.  

The left hand one shows Pocket Cook cookbooks that reside in the default cookbook folder , as well as the other Pocket Cook data files such as menu plans, shopping lists and ingredients etc.

The right hand one shows cookbooks that exist only on the Pocket PC and again only in the default cookbook folder.

Adjust the Action for any/all of the files you require to be synced.  For best performance only sync those files or cookbooks that have changed.

Then click on the sync button. At this point Pocket Cook copies from the Pocket PC to your PC in a folder called syncIN in the main Pocket Cook folder, those relevant cookbooks and files. A synchronization takes place with the files on the PC and new files are created in syncOUT. After it has finished, the synced files (or files to be transferred) are copied to the Pocket PC.

Synchronizing a Palm OS Device

When you first start the Setup Sync for Palm OS Device option in the PDA menu, you are presented with a new window with all the buttons except the Display button grayed out.

Before continuing we need to define a fundamental term used in Palm synchronization called the Conduit . A conduit is a link between a file on the Palm and a file on the PC. It defines how data is transferred between Palm and PC. Each file requires its own conduit which you specify by clicking on Display.

Click on Display and information is presented in two tables. The left hand table shows all of the cookbooks in the default cookbook location that have no conduits set up for them. That is they won't sync. The right hand table shows all of the previously defined conduits. When you run the Setup Wizard certain key conduits are predefined for you.

Select the actions you require for each cookbook or file. You can choose from:

  Do Nothing
  PC <-> Palm  Two-way synchronization
  PC ->| Palm  PC appends to Handheld (only new records added to Palm)
  Palm ->| PC  Handheld appends to PC (only new records added to PC)
  PC -> Palm   PC replaces Handheld   (Palm overwritten)
  Palm -> PC   Handheld replaces PC   (PC overwritten)
  Remove

Then click on Update. This will save the Conduits and their actions ready for the next Hotsync. They will stay like this until changed. No syncing will take place until you press the hotsync button on your Palm device cradle.

Remove All button will remove all the currently setup conduits. You need to click on Update after clicking on Remove All to implement the change. This is useful if you want to uninstall Pocket Cook or you are having conduit problems.

Reset button will delete all conduits and set up new ones as per the initial installation.

If you are storing cookbooks on a memory card on your Palm OS device then you must place Pocket Cook on the PDA into Hotsync Mode and then exit Pocket Cook BEFORE starting a hotsync. Only the current cookbook will be synchronized. If you keep your cookbooks in main memory, all the designated cookbooks will be synchronized on each Hotsync. If you don't place Pocket Cook into Hotsync Mode then any changes made via Hotsync on the PDA will be lost next time you start Pocket Cook as it will load the last copy of the cookbook from the memory card.  Only cookbooks in main memory can be synced and placing Pocket Cook into Hotsync Mode keeps the current cookbook in main memory rather than moving it back to the storage card.

Synchronizing a Symbian Device

The Symbian Syncing process is semi-automatic.

You must first copy the required files for syncing/transferring from your Symbian device and place them in a folder called syncIN in the main Pocket Cook folder. Then syncing takes place as normal as below. When finished new files are written to a folder called syncOUT. Copy these files back to your PDA.

You will need to use the File Manager software that came with your Symbian device to affect the file transfers or consider software from www.epocware.com. A more automatic process may be implemented in the future.

When you first start the Sync with a Symbian option (Sony Ericsson P800/900 or Series 60),  you are presented with a new window with the Sync button grayed out and two other buttons.

Cancel button will return you to the main menu or if you are in the process of syncing will cancel the sync in an orderly manner. That is: it will finish the file/cookbook it is on before cancelling.

Generally you will click on the Assemble button and after a few seconds you will see information presented in two tables.  

The left hand one shows Pocket Cook cookbooks that reside in the syncIn Folder , as well as the other Pocket Cook data files such as menu plans, shopping lists and ingredients etc.

The right hand one shows cookbooks that exist only on the PDA  (or more precisely in syncIN but no equivalent on the desktop.)

Adjust the Action for any/all of the files you require to be synced.

Then click on the sync button. Synchronization takes place with the files on the PC and those in syncIN,  and new files are created in syncOUT. After it has finished, the synced files (or files to be transferred) that are in syncOUT should be copied back to the Pocket Cook folder on your PDA or the cookbooks to the relevant cookbook folder if you have chosen an alternative cookbook folder location.

The following are the files that you may like to sync on your Sony Ericsson P800/P900:

They are stored in a folder called C:\system\apps\Pocket Cook in main memory or D:\system\apps\Pocket Cook if you have stored on storage card.

PCA_Shop.pdb holds the Shopping List
PCAPlans.pdb holds the Menu Plans

DO NOT CONFUSE these files with PC_ShopList.pdb and PCPlans.pdb  (close BUT NOT the SAME)

Recipes.pdb and any other cookbook names that you recognize. If you have selected another folder to keep your cookbooks in eg on your storage card then look there rather than the main Pocket Cook folder.

Download PDA Sofware

This option will download the latest version of the PDA software for your device from the Pocket Cook server. You will need to remove the software on your PDA before re-installing. Generally only use this option if advised to do so by an announcement.  No download information is displayed until the download is complete. The download is about 400-550KB depending on the PDA. It is saved in the Pocket Cook folder.

Install Downloaded PDA Software

This option installs the software that you have previously downloaded either as part of the setup wizard or later.
This is what it does:

Pocket PC:   runs the standard Pocket PC installer, in the normal way. If you want to install Pocket Cook to a storage card then say No when Prompted about using the default installation.

Palm : pops up the Palm Installer Tool with the software already added. If you get an error, then the Palm Installer Tool cannot be setup correctly and you will need to go to the Pocket Cook folder and look for the palm .prc file and add it in the way you normally do.

Symbian : starts up the Symbian Installer Tool. If you get an error, then the Symbian Installer Tool cannot be setup correctly and you will need to go to the Pocket Cook folder and look for the  .sis file and add it in the way you normally do.

Download Booster

All of our various Pocket Cook PDA software requires a runtime library called Booster. This is available as a free download from www.appforge.com

Clicking on this option takes you directly to the download screen. If you are unsure what version of Booster to download, select the option to view by device and find your PDA or Phone.

Download Booster to your PC and click on the downloaded file to start the install. It will create a folder on your PC and an entry in Start....Programs that you can then you use to install Booster to your device (or  re-install).

If you have other applications using Booster then that is fine as long as you use Version 5 Booster. It is backwards compatible.

Transfer to/from Web Server

Web Syncing allows you to transfer recipes, menus and shopping lists to and from the Pocket Cook Web Server.

You must have an account on the Web Server first. This can be obtained by registering on the server. A free 30 day trial account is available.

Once the account is set up and verified you will need to add your User Name and Password in the PDA section of Setup in the Tools menu. Please enter them exactly! as they have been confirmed to you.

When you first start the menu option Web Transfer you will be presented with a list of cookbooks on your desktop. In order to be listed the cookbooks must be in the default cookbook location, which is either the default program folder or what ever you have set it up to be. Then for each folder set the Action for that cookbook. You can choose from Upload (PC->Web), Download (PC<-Web) or Two way transfer (PC<->Web) or Do Nothing.

Whilst you can 'sync' multiple cookbooks of your choice, on the web site there is only one cookbook available called MyCookbook . In practice it makes sense to use just one cookbook to transfer recipes to and from the Web, though the choice is yours.

Transferring Cookbooks

After you have decided on the action for each cookbook, click on Update and those setting are saved.  You can  click on Remove All to remove from syncing action the files in the right hand table. Reset will return the cookbooks to be synced to their post installation state.

To transfer recipes you should bear in mind the following points:

1. On the PC, tag with the Web icon any recipe you want transferred to the Web Server. Recipes can be untagged by highlighting them and clicking on the drop down arrow next  to the Web tool bar button, or by clicking on the Web icon when viewing the recipe. Once the transfer has been made, the web tag is removed automatically.

2. On the Web Server, every time you add a new recipe or change a recipe in your MyCookbook, a changed Mark is set on that recipe. These recipes will be automatically transferred on a Web->PC or Web<-> transfer. You can review (and alter) this change mark in the Change Download Mark for Mobile Devices under MyCookbook in the Members area of the Web Server. At the completion of a download this change mark is reset automatically unless you have unchecked the checkbox at the bottom right of the Web Transfer window.

3. Unlike true synchronization (eg to PDA) only marked recipes are transferred. This is to improve performance on the web to PC link.

Transferring Menus and Shopping Lists

Click on Menu and Shopping buttons and Pocket Cook will contact the Pocket Cook Web Server and request the names of your existing plans or shopping lists and display them in the right hand table.

To upload a shopping list or plan to the web, double click on one in the grey first column (the column with a triangle on its side) on the left hand table and it will be uploaded. To download one from the web, double click on the first column of a list or plan on the right hand table and it will be downloaded from the Web to your PC.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:
When recipes, shopping lists or menus are transferred, Pocket Cook checks to see if one of the same name already exists at the destination. If it is, then it is overwritten with the transferred recipe, plan or list. If it doesn't exist then a new one is created.

The implications of this are two fold:

• If you have several recipes with the same name then only the first one is overwritten.
• If you already have a recipe, plan or list with the same name and it is in fact different, then Pocket Cook will still overwrite it. The name is the determining factor for Web Transfers. Duplicate Recipes whilst permitted are not encouraged.

Pocket Cook Support

You can contact us for support in 3 ways:

 Technical Support Forum
This is the preferred method of contacting us for Technical Support, and will always receive the highest priority in replying. It is not suitable for sales queries or non technical questions

Technical Support via E-Mail
Please contact us at support@pocket-cook.com or by clicking on the Live Support banner above when we are off-line  providing

1. The product you purchased (incl. type of PDA or Phone) and version number. e.g. Pocket Cook Deluxe for Pocket PC version 5.1.175
2. A detailed description of the problem. (please no requests like 'my pocket cook has stopped working. please help')
3. Any screenshots demonstrating the problem. The more information you provide the quicker we can help. Most delays in resolving problems are caused by vagueness in describing the problem necessitating several e-mails to work out what is going on.

Live Support
For complex problems this can be the quickest way. Note: We do not offer a 7 day 24 hour service. Click on the Live Support button scattered through out our web site.
We are on-line from about 12 noon PST until 8pm PST (9pm GMT to 6am GMT) from Sunday through to Thursday. Very often we are on-line on other days and times. If the banner says OFFLINE please click on it to send us a message. Also note that we don't offer a guaranteed service in the above times and there will be times when we are away from the support desk, though if the banner says On-Line then you can normally contact us live for a chat.

We check our email daily, and the technical support forum several times daily. During weekends, holidays and vacations there can sometimes be a delay in replying. Remember there are 24 time zones in the world! Please consult our Technical Support Forum before contacting us. Most problems that people experience are probably there in one form or another. Also look carefully through our FAQs and Support News to see if your problem is mentioned there.

Pocket Cook Mobile

Pocket Cook Mobile is our Web only Recipe Management solution. It is available only on a subscription basis.

It can be used to browse our collection of 10,000 recipes, to create and share your own menu plans and shopping lists and to nutritionally analyze your own recipes.

Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition and Pocket Cook Standard Web Edition can interface with Pocket Cook Mobile allowing the sharing of recipes and plans between Web, PC and PDA. A subscription is still required, though a free 30 day trial is offered.

Purchasing Pocket Cook

Pocket Cook can be purchased from our web site http://www.pocketcook.net

Once you have purchased Pocket Cook you will be given a license key or transaction ID which you can then use to register Pocket Cook to remove the 30 day trial limitations.

Pocket Cook PDA Software

Pocket Cook looks and runs very much the same on all PDA platforms. The Series 60 is slightly different in that it does not have a touch screen like most other PDAs so the menu structure is quite different. Where there are differences they are covered in the specific section for each PDA.

The first time you start Pocket Cook (and after each sync) it will be noticeably slower as it sorts the recipe database to improve subsequent performance. Similarly the first time you view any screen (e.g. viewing a recipe) it is slower than subsequent times.

Searching for Recipes on your PDA

To view recipes, simply select the required course and the recipes for that course will be displayed below. Tap the Up arrow or Down arrow (at top right) to move up or down a screen at a time. Select a recipe and tap to view it.

Recipes are organized into cookbooks. Cookbooks are stored in separate files. The choice of location can be specified  by an option in the Setup menu called Preferences. If no location is specified cookbooks are stored in the main Pocket Cook folder or on the Palm in main memory.

To view more recipes than are displayed, either keeping scrolling down (or up) and the recipes will be displayed a page at a time. Or use the two large arrows in the box at the top right to display a page at a time. The right and left keys (where appropriate as not all PDAs have them) will also scroll through a page at a time.

See Viewing a Recipe for details on recipes themselves.

The other two icons in the box are binoculars representing Advanced Search and an Alarm Bell for setting an alarm.

Advanced Search

This powerful feature of Pocket Cook allows you to search for recipes in many different ways.

Make your selection and then click on Find , and a screen showing all matching recipes will be displayed. You can scroll through the recipes either by tapping the up/down buttons or scrolling down through the recipes. The right key will also show the next page. The left key will take you back to the previous screen for a new search.

The Clear key will clear any previous search information ready for a new one.

The various search methods are:

1. Specific Words in Title . Either enter words into the  bottom text box separated buy commas (unless you want the two words to be searched for as one term e.g. maple syrup or black pepper Or select a word from the drop down list and it will added to the search line. Additional words can be selected in this manner. You can type or enter a letter to start the list at that letter. Entering another letter will further narrow down the possible ingredient matches. Tapping on Find will display all recipes that have ALL of the entered words in the title. It will not match recipes with one or more words. ALL words are matched. So where possible use the singular form rather than the plural. E.g.. To match plums use plum, to match tomatoes use tomato and to match cherries use cherr.
   
2. Specific Words in Ingredients . This is similar to the above search except that the ingredients list is searched rather than the title. This option is great for finding all of the recipes that can be made with a specified number of ingredients such as you might have in the pantry or fridge. i.e. If I have some bacon, eggs, smoked salmon and parsley I can list all recipes using these ingredients.
   
3. Keywords .  Keywords are user defined words that are assigned to a recipe by users. The keyword list is setup on the PC and synced to the PDA. A recipe can have as many keywords as you like but again they are all user definable and user associated. This search will display all recipes that have ALL the entered keywords. Keywords can be typed in or selected from the drop down list. It is not available unless you have the desktop companion to create keywords.
4. Style . Select all the styles that you want and recipes that match ANY of those styles are displayed.
   
5. Favorites . This search option displays only recipes that have been marked as a favorite.

Setting an Alarm

To set an alarm tap the alarm icon and enter the number of minutes (up to 999) that you want timed. Then press OK. The timer then starts. To cancel go back in and click on Cancel. The alarm icon changes form to indicate if there is a current alarm or not. The alarm will start up Pocket Cook and display a message even if Pocket Cook is not running or indeed even if the PDA is asleep.

Viewing Recipes on your PDA

There are various options available when you view a recipe

1. Display nutritional information
   
2. Display Ingredients
   
3. Display Method/Directions
   
4. Tap the menu icon to add the recipe to the current menu plan. Tap a meal to add the recipe, and the name is automatically inserted into the Recipe Title field. Tap Save to save the entry and Back icon to return to the recipe.
   
5. Tap the  +   icon to see more recipe information.
   
6. Change the serving size to the desired value and tap the  Recalc icon next to it to redisplay the recipe with new quantities.

You can also scroll back and forward the search list of recipes from before by tapping the left and right arrows or on most PDAs using the hardware keys.

Editing and Creating Recipes on your PDA

Tap on the menu button or menu toolbar to view the options of Editing , Deleting or Creating a recipe.

Editing a recipe is a matter of stepping through a series of screens, making any changes that are required. The recipe is saved after each screen. Tap Cancel to exit without saving.

When entering ingredients please note that blank lines are removed; that invalid units are simply placed with the ingredient; and that you should use decimal notation e.g. 1.5 for quantities.

Keywords will only show if they have been created using the desktop companion (Pocket Cook Deluxe Web Edition only).

Creating a New recipe is similar to editing a recipe except that all the screens are initially blank. You must enter a title and servings quantity and course but everything else is optional. At the end of the first screen, the recipe is created and you are then placed in edit mode so you can add to the rest of the recipe.

When adding ingredients simply add them like '1 c flour' or '2 eggs'. Use decimal quantities only. If the characters following the quantity are not recognized as a valid unit abbreviation e.g. tb or oz then what follows is treated as the ingredient. If the quantity is not recognized then the entire line is treated as the ingredient.

Deleting a recipe removes it permanently from the recipe database.

Menu Plans on your PDA

A menu plan or meal plan consists of 3 parts - a day, a meal and a recipe.

Tap on any recipe to view it. If nothing happens then either that item is not a recipe in a cookbook (i.e. an ad-hoc item, or the recipe is no longer available e.g. the cookbook has been removed)

Tap on any meal to add another recipe to that meal. You will be prompted for a description.

The Combine icon removes any meals that have no associated recipes to make easier viewing. Tap it again to show all meals for all days to allow the addition of more recipes.

The View Mode will change to Delete Mode when tapped indicating that you are now in DELETE mode. Any recipe that are tapped will now be removed instead of being viewed. Tap again to place in VIEW mode.

Using the menu options on the Menu screen, you can Active another menu. This means that it will become the current menu to which you add recipes when viewing them. You can also Manage Menus Plans by creating new ones based on one of three templates or rename or delete menus. Refresh menus is an option designed to ensure that the current plan is saved to/from the main database of plans. It should not be necessary to run this unless you have a problem with your PDA.

Shopping Lists on your PDA

A shopping list consists of 6 columns.

The first column is a checkbox that indicates whether the item has been purchased yet or not.

The second column is an icon indicating the type of item it is. All similar items are grouped together for easy shopping. The next column is the aisle number.

The next 3 columns display the quantity, unit and ingredient.

Tap on any ingredient to edit it or tap on New to create a new ad-hoc one e.g. Soap. Pocket Cook attempts to match the ingredient against its own database and display the appropriate group.

The   Combine icon  combines similar items together. e.g. it will combine 1 c flour with 4 tb flour. It will not combine items whose units are not compatible  e.g. 3 sm onions will not get combined with 5 lg onions.

The Remove icon will remove all items from the list, and the X icon will remove just items that have been checked.

Using the menu options on the Shopping screen, you can make Active another shopping list. This means that it will become the current list to which you add ingredients when viewing a recipe. You can also Manage Shopping Lists by creating  or renaming or deleting lists. Refresh list is an option designed to ensure that the current list is saved to/from the main database of shopping lists. It should not be necessary to run this unless you have a problem with your PDA.

Ingredients are added to shopping lists in one of two ways.

• While viewing a recipe tap on the left of the ingredient line and that ingredient will be added automatically to the current Active Shopping List.
• Tap on New button and you are presented with a new area to fill in the details of another ingredient.

The required information is:

• Item - Either select from the list of standard ingredients or enter your own item e.g.. soap. after you select an item Pocket Cook will fill in the aisle and Group fields automatically. To make entering items easier the dropdown box will present matching items as you 'type'. e.g.. enter c and Cabbage appear. Then type h and champagne appears, then type e and Cheddar appears etc.
• Qty - enter a decimal number for the quantity e.g. 1.5  (fractions are not permitted)
• Unit - Select from the list of units. If you want something different add it under the Item e.g.. handful of Parsley.'
• Aisle - enter an aisle if one has not been entered for you.
• Group - select a group if one has not been entered for you.

Tap Save to add this item to your shopping list. In a similar way, tapping on any ingredient will allow you to edit the ingredient.

Downloading from the Web to your PDA

With the optional subscription to the Pocket Cook Web Server , you can create recipes, menu plans and shopping lists on the server, share these with family and friends and download them to many different PDAs.  There are two basic screens for downloading. Before using either you will need to go to Setup menu and enter the assigned user name and password from the Pocket Cook Server into the appropriate boxes under Login Details . This user name and password is not the one for the Support Forum.

Download Recipes

Downloading Recipes can be done in one of two ways.

Download all recipes in My CookBook in your  account on the Pocket Cook Web Server or

Download just those recipes that have been added or been changed since the last download.

The recipes are downloaded into the current cookbook and this option. In addition there must be a wireless or modem link available from your device, as Pocket Cook will need to access www.pocket-cook.com via the HTTP protocol. You may experience problems if you are connecting through firewalls or a Proxy Server, so we strongly encourage you to use the free 30 days trial account before taking out a subscription.

Download Menu Plans

You can have up as many plans as you wish on your device. When you download a plan you will be prompted with a list of those available in your account on the Pocket Cook Web Server. Select the one you want, and that plan, its associated recipes and shopping list will be downloaded. If a shopping list does not exist on the web server, then one will be created by analyzing the recipes in the plan and creating a list from the ingredients.

Downloading a plan does not make it active.  You will need to go to the Menu screen and activate the downloaded plan in order to view or change it. Any associated recipes are downloaded as well, overwriting any with the same name on your PDA.

Setting Up Pocket Cook on your PDA

There are two areas where you can make selections in the Preferences option under Setup. You can choose how you want measurement units presented to you. Choose from US/Imperial Units and Metric.

If you have a storage card on your PDA you can select a folder (on the Palm you can create it as well) that you wish to store your recipes in. Thereafter Pocket Cook will only look in this folder for cookbooks to load. You must manually copy to the designated folder using the PDA copy utility those cookbooks you want on the storage card. See Managing Cookbooks for more information.

Managing Cookbooks on your PDA

Pocket Cook allows you to have as many cookbooks on your PDA/Phone as you like, or memory allows.

Use the Open Cookbook menu item to select and open another cookbook. It only lists the cookbooks from the default cookbook location. Cookbooks can be stored on removable storage cards. There are a number of subtle but important differences between PDAs. See the details in the chapter on your specific PDA for further details.

You can create new cookbooks and delete cookbooks using the Manage Cookbooks menu option.

Pocket PC Specific Information

The following are some things that are handled differently on the Pocket PC from other platforms.

• Cookbooks can only be stored in a top level folder in My Documents in main memory, or a top level folder on the storage card, or in the Pocket Cook program Folder.
• When tapping the X at the top right of any Pocket Cook screen, you are simply minimizing Pocket Cook and not stopping it. There is an option in Setup to close down Pocket Cook when the X is tapped. We do not recommend this.
• When syncing with the PC, it is important to close Pocket Cook. Tapping the X is not enough unless you have set the option above. You must exit through the main menu.
• Hardware Keys (left right up down) can be used to navigate between screens and to scroll  lists.
• Pocket Cook supports the keyboard, transcriber and letter recognizer text input methods.
• When downloading from the Web , you must manually setup a connection before starting the download. The Pocket PC does not support program initiation of internet connections.
• If you are connected to the web through a corporate Wi-Fi network you may have difficulty if the rules governing file transfer are too rigid. There is nothing we can do about this. We use HTTP POST protocol to send and receive information on port 80, the standard browser port.

Palm OS Specific Information

The following are some things that are handled differently on  Palm OS devices from other platforms.

• When using a storage card, Booster must be installed in main memory. Pocket Cook can be installed to a storage card but it is automatically brought into memory when required and removed when not required. We recommend strongly keeping Pocket Cook in main memory and keeping your cookbooks on a storage card. The current cookbook is read into main memory (so you must reserve space for it) when the program starts (resulting in a longer pause than normal) and saved back to the storage card when the program exits. Without cookbooks Pocket Cook needs about 300KB.
• When Hotsyncing, only cookbooks in main memory can be synced. If you keep Pocket Cook and its cookbooks in main memory then all cookbooks will be synced if you have set it up that way on the PC. If cookbooks are stored on a storage card, then only the current cookbook will be synced. Importantly you must (if keeping cookbooks on a storage card) set Hotsync Mode before starting the sync as otherwise any synced changes will be lost when next Pocket Cook starts, as it will read the cookbook in from the storage card. Setting Hotsync Mode stops the next startup of Pocket Cook reading from storage card but instead uses the memory resident cookbook left there by the sync. If you are just transferring recipes up to a PC then it does not matter and you do not need to set Hotsync Mode.
• Some lines in the Shopping List and Ingredient Displays can be cut-off due to the narrow display width of most Palms. This can be overcome by using the full display Toggle. Tap the Find key on your device and instead of editing an item or adding an ingredient to a shopping list, Pocket Cook will display a box with the full details. Tap the Find key to toggle back to the default mode. This toggle is automatically reset when leaving these screens.
• Standard Hardware keys are fully supported for the general Palm device. That is up and down keys. We also support the jog dial for the Sony Clie. If you want support for your device then let us know.

Sony Ericsson P800/900 Specific Information

The following are some things that are handled differently on the Sony Ericsson P800/900 from other platforms.

• At present we only support semi-automatic syncing of cookbooks and menus and shopping lists. It is necessary to use a file copy utility such as came with your device, or purchased commercially, to copy these files into a folder in the Pocket Cook program folder called syncIN. see Synchronizing a Symbian Device for full details.
• The Jog Dial is supported. When viewing recipe courses, pushing in the jog dial will toggle between course scrolling and recipe scrolling.