Cookbook design and recipe formatting
Cookbook design and recipe formatting.
Cookbook design and recipe formatting can be intense, and not for amateurs. A cookbook or any book with a lot of formatting will take longer to design than other kinds of books. There is a lot of competition in the marketplace for cookbooks. The author has the pressure of defining their culinary niche with delicious recipes and creative stories or copywriting. The cookbook designer will tie all elements together in a form that needs to stand out from this crowded category.
Consider how this cookbook is different from anything else and play to that distinction.
What you need to know …
Not only do individuals write cookbooks, but so do restaurant owners, dieticians, chefs, doctors, celebrities, and people from any walk of life.
Cookbook fractions and type
If the designer has never designed a cookbook before, carefully choose the typeface and fonts for the recipes. set the recipe formatting once and used it throughout the cookbook design.
There are special considerations for cookbook design. For instance, use a typeface that has ligatures. You find ligatures in all professional typefaces. To see ligatures in InDesign, go to Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs. Then select ‘Fractions’. Alternatively, you can select “Numbers.”
Instead of measurements being typeset as in the chart in the left column labeled “typeset,” the measurement should look like those shown in the “professional“ column. Some of these characters for the measurements are found in Glyphs. You may have to build off measurements, so make sure the typeface that you select has the characters to needed to create them.
| T Y P E S E T | P R O F E S S I O N A L |
|---|---|
| 1/8 cup | 1⁄8 cup |
| 1/2 cup | ½ cup |
| 1/3 cup | 1⁄3 cup |
| 2/3 cup | 2⁄3 cup |
| 1/4 cup | ¼ cup |
| 3/8 cup | 3⁄8 cup |
| 5/8 cup | 5⁄8 cup |
| 3/4 cup | ¾ cup |
| 7/8 cup | 7⁄8 cup |
If there are some non-standard measurements that are not in the “Fractions” or “Numbers” glyphs, they can be created. “Standard” glyphs vary from font to font.
Take 5 / 8 for example. Instead of selecting “Fractions,” you can use “Numerators” and “Denominators.” Select “Numerators.” Select the “ 5 ,” then select a forward slash “ ⁄ ” if it exists on the list, or from the keyboard. Now select “Denominators” from the list. Choose “ 8 .”
And it is done. It is easy. The result is “ 5⁄8.”
A COUPLE MORE TIPS
- If fractions need to be built, keep a running list so that each fraction need only be created once. Just copy and paste the fraction as needed.
- Do not add a hyphen between a whole number and a fraction. Example: 2 5⁄8 instead of 2-5⁄8.
- When it comes time to turn your cookbook design into a high-quality book, print on press with Star Print Brokers. Read about cookbook printing.
