Is there a plug-in for importing recipes

[evansh01]

I have been struggling with finding a simple way to import recipes into Indesign for a cookbook. Is there some kind of plug-in that will format it correctly that will just run a script? I know there are ways to do this but they are so time consuming, hoping someone has something I am not aware of! Thanks!

[BobLevine]

What makes recipes any different than anything else?

I did a cookbook a few years ago and all of the material was provided as Google Docs.

[evansh01]

It is the ingredient list, should that all be in its own column in the excel document, not all recipes have the same amount of ingredents. Some recipes are longer than others. 

How did you do it when you used google docs? Can you give me the steps you took to make the cookbook, I really appreciate any helps and or tips, thanks!

[J E L]

Hi @BobLevine, I'm a bit off-topic from this older thread, but you are the most likely to have an answer for me! I've been searching through threads about how to right-align ingredient measurements, especially those with mixed (and stacked) fractions, while keeping the ingredients themselves left aligned. Is there a script, GREP, or nested style that would achieve this? Maybe it's as simple as using tabs or a list set-up? Don't know why, but I can't figure it out for the life of me! Many thanks for your help!

Looking for this style:

To apply to an ingredients list like this:

[Robert Tkaczyk]

You need to insert two tabs - first at the beginning of the line and 2nd after ingredient measurements.

GREP could be used to do this easily - but I'm on my phone right now. 

[J E L]

@Robert Tkaczyk, thanks so much, I tried something like that, but it wouldn't right-align the ingredient measurements.

[Robert Tkaczyk]

Because you need to "define" first tab as right-aligned: 

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/indesign/using/tabs-indents.html

1st screenshot - A:

1.  Left
2.  Center
3.  Right
4.  Decimal 

TAB character is always the same Unicode value - but InDesign can react differently to it. 

[J E L]

Yea, I've been through all these settings ad infinitum! For some reason, I can't get the right-align tab to “stick” when I apply it to the text. It keeps switching back to a left-align tab. Thanks for your help. I'll keep trying!

ETA: Here's where I originally started, based on Barb's screenshot towards the end of this thread. https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indented-bullet-list-and-aligned-tab-spacing/m-p... Without bullet points, I changed the first left-aligned tab to a right-aligned tab. But it still won't stick for me. Okay! I have high-jacked this old thread enough. Apologies!

[J E L]

I seem to have fixed it. I cut the text out of the frame, pasted it into a new frame, and applied a generic style to it. I then copy and pasted it back in place, cleared all the tabs, and reset them. This time they stuck!

[brianp311]

As Bob suggests, it pretty much starts and ends with well thought out Paragraph and Character styles. Nail that and it should be a breeze. You could always explore Data Merge if your recipes are in a data file. 

[evansh01]

Thats what I need to know, how to get them to come in correctly with data merge. 🙂

[SJRiegel]

That depends upon how your spreadsheet is set up. To use data merge, each recipe would need to be on just one row of the spreadsheet. If it is set up some other way, you will need to use a differnt process to format the InDesign pages.

[brianp311 · Accepted solution]

One field per recipe line is probably best (ie, Instructions_1, Instructions_2, Instructions_3). Using soft returns in a csv file can mess up how the data flows in through Datamerge. You can have blank entries in your data and just use GREP to remove them after you do the merge. 

[JonathanArias · Accepted solution]

https://www.lynda.com/InDesign-tutorials/Using-Word-InDesign-Together/122930-2.html?autocompleteMovi...

[evansh01]

Thanks!