HOWTO: Create a Recipe Cookbook in OpenOffice 3.3

This HOWTO: will guide you through the process creating a Recipe Cookbook in OpenOffice 3.3.

PREWORK:
Before staring to type in all your favorite recipes, and formatting each
section of text, there are a few decisions that will affect your layout.
They are:

1. Paper Size: 8.5" x 11", 8.5" x 14", or 11" x 17"
2. Binding: 3 Ring or Spiral
3. Columns per Sheet of Paper: 2, 3, or 4
4. Text Font & Size: TimesNewRoman, Arial, Courier, etc.
5. Orientation: Landscape or Portrait
6. Sides: Single or Double Sided
7. Cookbook Pages Printed on a Sheet of Paper: 1, 2 or 4 (Depends on Columns & Sides)

I chose 8.5" x 11", 3 Ring, 2 Columns, TimesNewRoman, Portrait,
and Double Sided. These choices specify two recipe pages on each
side of a sheet of paper, making a total of four recipe pages printed
in some specific order on one sheet of paper to create a Recipe Booklet.
I prefer a 3 Ring Cookbook to the Spiral Bound versions as the 3 Ring
version pages don't get mangled. The separator line down the center of
the layout may be used for manual cutting the sheets when you are
finished printing. Your decisions may vary from mine, making your layout
different depending on your test printing results.


LAYOUT THE COLUMNS:
Formatting a Single Sheet of Paper in OpenOffice 3.3:
FORMAT -> PAGE -> 2 COLUMNS
SPACING 1.30" with a Separator Line of NONE (This is because my Brother HL-2140 doesn't print them equal side to side)

This will give you an area for each page (Left & Right) on each side of the Sheet of Paper. It is within this area that
your text will be formatted according to your planned layout.

Use recipe1.png & recipe2.png below to assist you in laying out your design.

Once your 8.5" x 11" sheet has the proper layout save the file.

ADD/DELETE PAGES:
Open your layout and keep the "enter key" depressed to create the needed pages.
Likewise move your cursor to the last row in the last column of the last sheet
and keep the "delete key" depressed to remove the extra pages. Save your file.


CALCULATING PAGE LAYOUT ORDER:
Since each Sheet of Paper may contain 4 printed pages, the total number
of pages CREATED in OpenOffice 3.3 needs to be a multiple of FOUR. For
example, I typed in 104 pages in OpenOffice 3.3 and this will create
26 ODD Pages and 26 EVEN Pages. For my Recipe Book the page order was:

ODD
104,1,102,3,100,5,98,7,96,9,94,11,92,13,90,15,88,1 7,86,19,84,21,82,23,80,25,78,27,76,29,74,31,72,33, 70,35,68,37,66,39,64,41,62,43,60,45,58,47,56,49,54 ,51

EVEN
2,103,4,101,6,99,8,97,10,95,12,93,14,91,16,89,18,8 7,20,85,22,83,24,81,26,79,28,77,30,75,32,73,34,71, 36,69,38,67,40,65,42,63,44,61,46,59,48,57,50,55,52 ,53

ODD Order is LAST PAGE, FIRST PAGE, LAST PAGE-2, FIRST PAGE+2, LAST PAGE-4, FIRST PAGE+4...........to........((LAST PAGE/2)-1)
EVEN Order is FIRST PAGE+1, LAST PAGE-1, FIRST PAGE+3, LAST PAGE-3, FIRST PAGE+5, LAST PAGE-5......to........((LAST PAGE/2)+1)

OpenOffice Writer has a nice Extension that can be installed under TOOLS -> ADDONS -> PRINT BROCHURE
This Extension will calculate the Page Arrangement Layout for you......or you can do as I did to verify
what I wanted by using Calc (Excel) to create the layout.

I manually moved each page to the proper position, but I should have been able to create a single page,
then assign two pages per sheet when printing, and specify the order printed by PRINT BROCHURE.
I may try that in the future and post the results.......


RECIPE TEXT:
I chose 14 pt. for the Recipe TITLE and the NAME (Right TABS at 4.3 & 10.2), 10 pt. BOLD for the
INGREDIENTS (Left TABS at 2.5 & 8.35), and 12 pt. for the INSTRUCTIONS. Page numbers were
manually inserted, 14 pt. CENTERED on the last line of each page.
See Attached png's.

Reference the attached Photo's & File:
recipe1.png
recipe2.png
recipe3.png
recipe4.png
85x11.odt (OpenOffice ver 3.3 format)

Enjoy! This would be a good Christmas Project for the Family & Relatives!


For those of you that want to duplicate that OLD KEEPSAKE COOKBOOK, I've
conjured up a method that works pretty good. I happen to have this method
on the Fedora Forums, because I was testing Fedora 14 on a new hard drive,
and already had lots of the software installed. Plus, Fedora 14 comes with
Open Office Version 3.3 installed, out of the box. Have a look at the following
Posting. You should be able to duplicate the method with Ubuntu using the
same software.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=255946


BINDERS:
OfficeMax has a 5.5" x 8.5" Binder Part Number 077711230149 for a bit over $7.00,
that has 1" Rings and holds 175 sheets. That should hold all your recipes.
I picked mine up at the Riverdale, Utah 84405 Store. 801.627.3739

lkraemer

Thank you for this post! I expect it will come in handy building a recipe book to go along with my diet, plus a way to document all those recipes I've come up with myself.

--bornagainpenguin

Thanks for this, was looking to put together a Vegetarian/Raw Vegan cookbook at some point in the near future! :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fugazi32

Thanks for this, was looking to put together a Vegetarian/Raw Vegan cookbook at some point in the near future! :D

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that sounds just great!! :D