I currently use Onenote for creating bread recipes. I have a template which I use to create individual recipes with ingredients/quantities/procedures, etc.
Then this gets filled in as the dough making and baking proceeds, with addition of photos for example being very easy.
However Microsoft seems to have a habit with Onenote of not doing upgrades that users want.
The main thing I miss is not having any calculation facility built in; for example if I decide I want to use one of my already baked recipes and make 50% more bread, I have to update every relevant quantity manually.
I know I can link an Excel file, but this is messy and clunky. And I don't want a standalone spreadsheet solution - Onenote does this aspect of things so much better, with top tabs for sections and side lists for pages.
Chatgpt has suggested Notion. It thinks I will lose a bit but gain most of what I want.
I plan to give it a try, especially since the basic version is free for home use, but I just wondered if anyone else is using or has tried it?
Lance
Can you copy the existing recipe into one of the chatbots and ask it to increase quantities by 50% and keep it in the same format? I have converted recipes from volume measures to grams that way with good success.
Maybe M$ has integrated Copilot into OneNote?
I haven't used Notion or OneNote so take all this as theory.
Gary
Chatgpt can't read onenote files - you have to export to pdf, so it gets messy. But after your post I thought, surely MS's ai Copilot could do it?
It seems not. Copilot said "I can’t directly open or read the contents of OneNote files. What I can do is help you search for them if you’ve connected your OneDrive account to Copilot — since OneNote notebooks are stored there. I’d then be able to list matching files by name, but I wouldn’t be able to open or summarize their contents.
If your goal is to work with the material inside a OneNote notebook, the best way is to export or copy the text into a supported format (like Word, PDF, or plain text) and then share it here. That way, I can help analyze, rewrite, or organize the content."
Not the answer one would hope for....
Select the text in OneNote, copy then paste it into the chat interface. That should give you plain text. Perhaps that will work?
I use Notion for note taking at work. It's pretty nice. I haven't tried doing calculations but it is a nice tool. If anything I find I struggle with it being "too smart", as it I do something and it starts formatting in a particular fancy way and I have difficulty telling it "no, not like that, like this." I think there is a bit of a learning curve in figuring out how to make it do what you want, but it most likely can do so.
Good luck!
Call me a Luddite but I have to believe that I'm not the only one to use a note book and a pen to write down recipes and make adjustments. My Irish grandmother never used a recipe when she used to bake a dozen or so loaves of bread every Saturday. She used to just scoop KAF out of a crock add yeast ( and or starter ) and water and adjust it once in a great while " A bit more flour or water , it has to feel right when I mix and knead it."
to loose leaf binder. 😊 Before that I kept everything in old photo albums with big metal rings that snap open and clear plastic sheets that you lifted and slid the recipe under and pressed it back in place. I still have and use those photo binders. 3 huge ones. Chock full of my handwritten as well as carefully cut out recipes.
My current endeavor has been focused on rereading every post I’ve made in my blog here for over 17 years and editing the formulas and handwriting them on loose leaf paper and putting them in a new binder. There’s no organization , on purpose. I leaf through and spot something and decide yes or no I’m going to make it .
I use my calculator on my phone to change a formula to increase or decrease the volume. Takes a couple minutes.
At 75 I’m definitely not progressive. I love pencils and erasers and I use an old soft sided cooler with a $14.95 heating pad from Walmart as my proofer for both bread / levain/ yogurt. Works just fine for me.
That’s the beauty of this whole cooking and baking process. To each their own. 🙏
Years ago, I toyed with a variety of computerized bread recipe managers. I found that I could do the math in my head faster than I could set up the application and enter the numbers. For more complex calculations, I do use a calculator.
I have a text editor template for recording bread formulas. I enter the numbers in 3 tables - Total dough, Levain and Final dough - and type the procedures in a numbered list, step by step.
Look at any of my Blog entries (except for the very oldest) to see examples.
This approach has worked for me for over 10 years. It may not be right for every one. I will note that working with Bakers' Math frequently for a while greatly enhanced my ability to do calculations in my head rapidly and accurately.
Happy baking!
David
One of the reasons I've favored 100% hydration over the years is that it makes mental arithmetic easier.
TomP
I used to write bread recipes and logs in spiral bound notebooks - handwritten in pen.
But about three years ago I realised that there were some serious shortcomings with this system, for example:
So I had a look at what PC based solutions were available and decided to go with Onenote
I get the impression that status quo (why change?), emotion and perhaps a touch of nostalgia can influence bakers' choices of a recipe/record system, but I certainly would go back to a paper based system now. Here's a couple of screenshots of my setup:
There was a bit of a learning curve initially, but not too bad. You can create a recipe layout you like and save it as a template for future use. And adding photos is so easy - I can just copy a photo directly from Google Photos on the desktop and paste it in, cropping as desired. Not everything is perfect - you can't apply formulas to designated cells, hence my original post about Notion. However I have decided to stick with Onenote and I am looking at embedding an Excel table into the recipe page.
Of course, this is all done on a desktop - and presumably a Mac. Forget it on a phone or small tablet.
And as Caroline says - each to their own!
Lance