Cheap MasterCook Deluxe 8.0 (Software) (Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 98) Price

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Customer Reviews of MasterCook Deluxe 8.0

It looks like I am going to delete it and reinstall MC3.0
I finally decided to buy the new edition because of XP and the nutritional information for fats. I love MC 3.0. I hate this one. It would get a 1 star except I like the web feature and the fact I can see the fats otherwise it is a loser in editions. <
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>It comes in one color.. Beige. This may not seem important but my eyesight makes it very hard for me to see with certain hues and colors. I cannot change it as I could in 3.0. Ok fine except the menu bar is on the bottom of the page. I cannot move it. Again the eyesight and neck play a problem with this. The icons which cannot be customized, you are stuck and save is NOT one of them is on the left hand side. on the lower part of the screen right where I don't ever bother looking because in close to 17 years of GUIs no one ever really bothered to put it in such a lousy location. <
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>I have to use two to three steps more for everything and look thru things that I really shouldn't have to do simple chores that I could do in one click with Sierra's version. It also seems buggy. I entered my categories and suddenly when I opened the last time, the template is gone which means I have to redo the entire thing. It is bulky without very good organization. I will say that it is pretty but that is about it. It is coming out a loser and I am starting to look for my 3.0 which is old but fast and more reliable than this. <
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>I use to swear by MC. Course I use to swear by Netscape too. It doesn't mean I can't change my choices. I just wish it was as good as Amazon's service in getting it to me.

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Good as a cookbook, not as a recipe organizer
I purchased the MasterCook 8 software in part because of the great reviews it received and its PDA <
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>support, but it isn't quite as good for me as it seems to be for most others. The overall design is <
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>very nice, and it looks better than any other cookbook program that I've tried, and the recipes <
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>look delicious. Unfortunately, it's not the program to use if you have a lot of recipes to import. <
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>I've tried importing Meal-Master recipes, plain text recipes and even recipes exported then <
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>reimported by MasterCook 8, but even though the recipes get imported all of the categories <
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>disappear! Not only that, but there doesn't seem to be a standard set of categories for new <
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>cookbooks -- you have to make your own category template. Another big issue for me is eliminating <
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>duplicate recipes; MasterCook 8 checks for duplicates when you first import recipes, but there's no <
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>way to simply check for duplicates in a current cookbook. <
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>All in all, if you don't have many recipes of your own and you aren't inclined to download <
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>thousands of new ones from the Internet the way I did then this is a good program. If, however, you <
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>have a large collection of recipes or want to build one, this is not the best program with which to <
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>organize them. I switched to AccuChef, which isn't as polished in some ways, but its much better at <
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>organizing my recipes.

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The best recipe management software out there!
I have used Master Cook for many years now, and I am very impressed with it's capabilities. I mainly use it for managing and nutritionally analyzing my own recipes, but the recipes that come with the program are also useful, and easy to customize to your own needs. There are many yahoo (and other) groups dedicated to sharing Master Cook recipes in a format that is very easy to download, and the recipe import feature makes it easy to copy and paste recipes in text format (or from websites - including pictures!) in just a few seconds. It can take a while to type in a lot of recipes from books, or initially typing in your collection if you choose to do it all at once, but I think it is worth the effort. I have tried a variety of other recipe software programs (Cook'n, ChefTec - EXPENSIVE, Meal Master, Instant Home Cooking, CookWare, among a few!) and I have found Master Cook to be by far the best value with the most customization abilities, ease of use, and user-friendliness. <
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>Master Cook also has the capability to keep track of your pantry, create shopping lists, plan your menus, search for recipes based on very specific criteria (ingredients to avoid or include, single nutritional items, your personal rating or category, time to make, cost - if you use the shopping section, etc., and combinations of any of these things). <
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>One thing that I don't like about Master Cook are that it *doesn't* include SUGAR or TRANS FATS in the nutritional information (or a custom nutrition capability - that would be handy for calculating weight watchers points!) I contacted ValuSoft about the possibility of adding these and was told that they do *not* expect to add these in the near future. I was disappointed by this because I think that sugar and trans fat are pretty basic items to nutrition - I hope they reconsider! <
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>Overall, I highly recommend this product if you are interested in maintaining and sharing recipes and/or having control over your nutrition. I have enjoyed the ability to modify recipes so that they are healthier for me and my family, and have given this software (and my recipes/cookbooks from it!) to several family members as gifts.