How to get handwritten and printed recipes off paper and into an app

Import a recipe from a photo

1. Photograph one recipe at a timeFill the frame with a single recipe in even light. One recipe per image keeps the extraction focused.
2. Import the imageChoose the photo or screenshot in Palato's import.
3. Correct what the page could not sayOld recipes leave things out on purpose. Edit the draft to add the oven temperature or the portion count the page assumed you knew.
4. Save it into a listFile it in a custom list so the family recipes stay together and stay findable.

Paper recipes are the ones you cannot afford to lose

The recipes worth keeping are rarely the ones on a website. They are on a card in somebody's handwriting, in a cookbook with a cracked spine, or in a screenshot taken so long ago that you no longer remember what the dish was called.

None of that is backed up, none of it is searchable, and a single spill can end a recipe that has been in a family for decades.

What Palato can read

Palato imports from supported photos and screenshots, as well as from supported social media links, websites and notes. A photographed page becomes a structured recipe: ingredients as a list, steps in order, and a portion count you can adjust.

Saved entries can also be created manually, and owned or imported entries can be reviewed and edited at any time. A card with three lines of instructions and an implied oven temperature will need that editing pass, and it is worth doing once rather than guessing every time.

What you gain by digitising them

Once the recipe is structured you can organise it in custom lists and search the whole collection, plan it into a weekly calendar, and create shopping list items from the plan.

You can also share a recipe library, meal plans and shopping lists with a household, which is a plainer way of saying that the recipes stop belonging to whoever holds the box of cards.