How do I ... ?

To create a Bookshelf you have to be a member.   You can create a Free account which limits you to 5 books on your Bookshelf.

Click on the Sign Up or Become a Member links

1. Select Free
2. Enter Username, Email and Password
3. Tick that you accept EYB Terms & Conditions and tick if you want to receive the Newsletter
4. Click on Sign Up

Before you next sign in you will have to click on the verify link in the verification email sent to you.  There is no time limit for your free membership - if you want to add more than 5 books just click on the Upgrade link on your Home page to become a full member.

To avoid your verification mail being stopped by your spam filter you should add the @eatyourbooks.com domain to your safe senders list.

Full or paid membership means an unlimited number of books, magazines and online recipes can be added to a Bookshelf.   Click on the Sign Up or Become a Member links on the Home page.

1. Click on either Monthly or Yearly
2. Enter Username, Email and Password
3. Tick that you accept EYB Terms & Conditions and tick if you want to receive the Newsletter
4. Click on Sign Up

You will be taken to PayPal to complete your payment details

You will be sent a verification email.  Before you next sign in you will have to click on the verify link in the email.  You will also be sent an email from PayPal to confirm your payment.

To avoid your verification mail being stopped by your spam filter you should add the @eatyourbooks.com domain to your safe senders list.

To upgrade from a Free membership just click on the link to upgrade on your Home page.  Or go to your Account page and select the Upgrade link under Subscription Details.

1. Select either Monthly or Yearly
2. Click on Upgrade

You will be taken to PayPal to complete your payment details.  You do not have to be a member of PayPal to make a payment with a credit card.

You will be sent an email from PayPal to confirm your payment.

To upgrade from a monthly to an annual membership go to your Account page (click on your username in the top right hand corner and select Account).

1. Select Upgrade to Annual link under Subscription Details at the bottom of the page.
2. On the Renewal form Select Yearly
3. Click on Upgrade

You will be taken to PayPal to complete your payment details.  You do not have to be a member of PayPal to make a payment with a credit card.

You will be sent an email from PayPal to confirm your payment.   Your annual membership will start from the day after the last paid day from your monthly membership.

You can edit or update your profile at any time:

1. Click on your Username in the top right hand corner and Select Profile.  In the right hand side column click on the Edit link
2. Add text to the Quick Bio box
3. Click Save Changes

1. Click on your Username in the top right hand corner and select Account
2. Change Password and type in New Password - Type it in again
3. Select Save  Changes

NOTE: If you are not signed in and have forgotten your password click the (Forgot?)  link on the sign in screen.  A new password will be sent to your email.  If it doesn't arrive within a few minutes, check your spam folder.

1. Click on your Username in the top right hand corner and select Account
2. Update your Email Address
3. Select Save  Changes

You will be sent an email with a link to verify your new email address - you will need to do this before you next sign in.  If you do not receive the email contact EYB at info@eatyourbooks.com and it will be resent to you.  Add @eatyourbooks.com to your safe senders list to avoid emails being stopped by your ISP.

Gift certificates are for a one year membership for Eat Your Books and cost US$25.00. 

1. Click on the Gift Certificate icon that can be found on the Community or Home page
2. Enter your email address  (NOT the email address of the person you are giving the gift to)
3. Click on Purchase - you will be taken to PayPal to complete your payment.  You do not have to have a PayPal account.
4. A Gift Certificate will be sent to you via email.  You choose how you want the recipient to receive your gift.  You could send it by email or print a hardcopy.

The annual membership only commences when the Gift Certificate is redeemed by the recipient. 

Please make sure you have @eatyourbooks.com as a safe domain in your email settings - to avoid the Gift Certificate going to your junk mail.

To receive the monthly newsletter sent out by Eat Your Books:

1. Select Account
2. Tick the box
3. Save Changes

If you have a blog or website, you can add the EYB widget that shows the number of books on your Bookshelf and will link through to your EYB Profile showing your list of cookbooks. So if you want to share your collection with your followers this is how you do it:

1. Go to your Profile page and click on Edit and scroll to the bottom of the page.
2. Copy the HTML code and paste into your website page
3. You will see this image appear showing the number of books you have on your Bookshelf.

The search box is a quick way to find a recipe - here are a few  things to be aware of when using it:

• Any words you enter will be matched to recipe names, author names, book titles and the ingredients list. 
• If you enter too few words you may get a long list of results that is not particularly useful. 
• The more words you enter the fewer results you'll get.
• In addition to carrying out a very wide search - the results do not take into account that if you use Chicken as a search term you might only want recipes using chicken meat but it will search for every occurence of that word - including recipes with chicken stock. 
• You should use the Only Show filters to specify the type of chicken - go to More Information about using Only Show to find out more.

To use the Quick box effectively - here are a few tips:

• Use an author name or book title to restrict your searches to recipes by one author or book.  Your search can then be very specific.
  eg   Katzen broccoli soup
• Use quotes around your text to restrict your results to match that text exactly.
  eg  "Chicken pot pie" will give you less results than chicken pot pie - without quotes.   The latter will include recipes such as chicken not-pot pie and chicken and leek pot pie
• Use boolean search terms to get more from your searches.
  eg  zucchini corn will return recipes that include both ingredients whereas zucchini OR corn will return all recipes that include either of these ingredients.  If you then add chicken using the Only Show filter you will get all chicken recipes that use either zucchini or corn.

You can refine your searches by some of the commonly used Boolean search terms.  Most of these results can also be achieved by using the Only Show filter - but if you're familiar with Boolean logic you might want to use both methods.

Some examples of searches using Boolean logic:

• AND results have all these criteria. This is the default search for EYB so there is no need to put AND in your searches.
  eg find recipes that use both chicken and zucchini.
       chicken AND zucchini. 
• OR to find recipes that have either of the criteria. 
  eg find recipes that use either chicken or zucchini
       chicken OR zucchini
• - to find recipes that exclude a search term -
  eg find recipes that use chicken but not zucchini
       chicken -zucchini
• * by adding a * to the end of a word will find all recipes beginning with that string of characters. 
  eg Find all recipes that use pomegranates by the author Raghavan Iyer (useful if you can't remember how to spell words)  
         pomeg* ragh*
• A more complex use of these terms. 
  eg  Find all chicken recipes that use zucchini but do not use corn or stock and is not a soup 
       chicken and (zucchini -corn or -stock or -soup)

You can filter your search results by using the filter options on the right hand side of the screen.  These options vary for Books and Recipes - see more on filtering in the Book and Recipe sections below.

1. Enter your search term in the search box - optional - you can add all your search criteria using Only Show.
2. Use one of the filter options to narrow your search.  In this example only recipes that have online links will show in the results.
3. Narrow your search results further by selecting other criteria from the Only Show area.  For more information on Only Show see Book and Recipe sections below.

The Only Show filter helps to narrow down your search after you've typed a search term into the Search Box or you can use it on its own.  You will get more precise results by selecting Ingredient/Meat, poultry & game/Chicken than you would typing Chicken into the search box.   In this example we're using Only Show to find a Thai curry, that uses lemongrass but doesn't use nuts.

1. Click on Recipe Types/Dish Types/Curry 
2. Click on Ingredients/Meat, poultry & game/Chicken/pieces 
   Click on Ingredients/Herbs & Spices/Herbs/Lemongrass
   Click on Ingredients/Baking ingredients/Nuts
3. Add each item by clicking on the + on the right hand side
4. If you add an item by mistake - remove it from the filter area by clicking on the x.
5. To exclude Nuts from your search click on the green+, the icon changes to a red-

To learn more about the icons go to More information about using the Only Show

To find out more about using Only Show go to the previous question or the book and recipe sections.  This explains what each of the icons used in Only Show mean.

1. to expand out the Category
2. to collapse down the Category
3. to add an item to Only Show list
4. to delete an item from Only Show list
5. to exclude an item from your search click on the green+, the icon changes to a red-

Eat Your Books search results enable you to easily scroll through the list of books or recipes that match your search terms.  Rather than moving between individual pages you can scroll down and up very easily.  

The results are loaded in lots of 25 items - if they all loaded at the same time the response time would be very slow for large searches.  If you have a very large number of search results returned you might want to refine your search to narrow down your results.  If you want to work with a large number of results there is a way to quickly move around without having to load each lot of 25.   We will be improving this as we realise it's not very user-friendly.

1. Enter your search terms
2. Click on "Show next 25 recipes" to move to the second load of 25. 
3. Change the 2 at the end of the URL to the place in the search results you want to move to.   If there are 400 results from your search you can go straight to the end by changing the number at the end of your URL to 16 (25 results per page).  Or if you know you want to see results half way through then change the number to 8.

1. Select Library
2. Type in the name of an author, title of a book or an ISBN
3. Click on +Bookshelf
4. Books that are on your Bookshelf will change status in the Library
5. To add a magazine to your Bookshelf click on the Magazine tab and repeat process.

Book titles are listed in the Library and your Bookshelf displaying a variety of information about the book.

1. Sort by - the default is relevance to search terms.  Choose from other sort options.
2. Indexed Books - tick this box to show only indexed books
3. Expand/Collapse- move toggle to adjust the amount of information displayed and printed
4. Print Results - prints a list of the books displayed
5. Look In Books.. (Bookshelf only) - If you have tagged books you can choose to display selected Bookmarked books.  
6. Stars - rating by members
7. Displays a book's indexing status
   Indexed - book has been indexed
   Member Indexed - book has been indexed by an unpaid member - quality of indexing may vary
   Request Index - click to request book to be indexed
   Index Requested - you have requested this book to be indexed
   Index Soon - book has been assigned to be indexed
8. Bookmark (Bookshelf only) - click to tag book with a Bookmark.
   +Bookshelf  (Library only) - click to add book to your Bookshelf.
9. Icons - 
   Speech bubble - the number of notes about this book and its recipes - click to display Notes page. 
   Heads - the number of Bookshelves this book is on.  Click to display whose Bookshelves.
   Links - the number of other editions of this book.   Click and the books will be listed below.  To add one of these to your Bookshelf click on ISBN and +Bookshelf on Book Details page

The Import Books feature is useful for members who have their books digitally cataloged or have a barcode scanner.   You can either paste or scan in lists of ISBNs to the Import box - your books will be automatically uploaded to your Bookshelf.   If we do not have one of your ISBNs, you will be notified.  We will endeavor to add them to the EYB library and they will automatically be added to your Bookshelf.

1. Select Import Books
2. Paste your list of ISBNs into the Import Box
3. Click Add Books

See below for importing ISBNs from LibraryThing, GoodReads or using a barcode scanner.

Sign into LibraryThing

1. Go to the More tab
2. Select Import/Export
3. Select Export as CSV.  Your data is exported to your default spreadsheet (you may need to sort your columns by tags to group your cookbooks together)

Select and copy the ISBNs. Please don't import non food and drink related books.
Go to the EYB Import Books screen and paste the ISBNs into the Import Box
For more information on importing books go to How to Import Books

Sign in to GoodReads

1. Click on the My Books tab
2. Select Import/Export
3. Select Export to CSV file on right hand side.  Your data will be exported to your default spreadsheet (you may need to sort your columns by tags to group your cookbooks together)

Select and copy the ISBNs. Please don't import non food and drink related books.
Go to the EYB Import Books screen and paste the ISBNs into the Import Box.
For more information on importing books go to How to Import Books

Connect your barcode scanner to your computer in the normal way

1. Go to the EYB Import Books screen
2. Place your cursor in the Import box - Start scanning (up to 500 books at a time)
3. Click on Add Books when you've finished

Only Show... helps you narrow down your search to find exactly the right book.  You can use a combination of the Search box and the Only Show filters or either on their own.  Look through the filters to see what criteria you can search by.  For more information go to More information about using Only Show

1. Select a criteria by using the filters.  Click on + to add it to the filter box
2. Click on x to take it out of the filter box
3. You can select just Indexed Books
4. You can choose the order you want the books sorted in

You can limit your book search results by using the Filter options. In this example we are looking at the Filter options available within your own Bookshelf - the Library does not show Bookmark filters.   We want to only look at the Indexed books located in the Kitchen.

1. Tick the filter box - Indexed Books
2. If you have used Bookmarks you can select a Bookmarked group of books.

If you want to search only for books that have been Indexed - you can use the Filter on the right hand side.

1. Enter your search term in the search box - or use the Only Show area.
2. Tick the Indexed Books tab

1. Select the amount of data you want to view by using the expand/collapse toggle
2. Click on Print Results
3. Shows the 3 different views you can get from using expand/collapse

1. Click on the x under the Boomark button and the book will be removed from your Bookshelf.
   OR
2. Click on the title of the Book
3. On the book details page click on Remove

Members can now index books that are unlikely to be indexed by EYB because they are not on sufficient Bookshelves. Choose the book you’d like to index – only one book will be assigned for indexing at a time. 

1. Click on the “Request Index” link below the book cover image. 
2. Click “Request to Index”. 

You will receive an email giving you instructions on how to proceed.  
Once you have access to the data input form there are step by step instructions on how to index recipes.

A book request may be turned down if it's on EYB’s own indexing chart.
If you click “Request EYB to Index” your request will be added to the Indexing chart.  Books are only indexed by EYB once they are on sufficient Bookshelves.

For more information see the Introduction to Indexing Cookbooks.

In this example we want to find all chocolate cake Recipes

1. Type the words that describe what you're looking for into the Search Box.  You can use words in the book title, recipe title, ingredients, etc.  You do not need to separate the words with commas, a space is fine.  If you have a specific term you want such as a book title, put it in speech marks.
2. 100 Recipes for chocolate cake have been found
3. You can include more words in the Search Box, such as banana to narrow down your search - or use the Only Show filter

Recipes are listed in the Library and your Bookshelf displaying a variety of information about the recipe.

1. Sort by - the default is relevance to search terms.  Choose from other sort options
2. The number of recipes listed from a search for cheesecake
3. Expand/collapse - move toggle to adjust the amount of information displayed and printed
4. Print Results - prints a list of the recipes displayed
5. Recipe Name, Book Title and Author
6. Stars - rating by members
7. Speech bubble - the number of notes about this book - click to display Notes page
8. Bookmark (Bookshelf only) - click to tag recipe with a Bookmark
9. Look in Books - (Bookshelf only) look for recipes only in Books tagged with a selected Bookmark
10. Show Only Recipes.. (Bookshelf only) - look for recipes only in selected Bookmark category

Using a search term like chocolate cake will probably give you too many results.  To find exactly the type of cake you want the Only Show filter helps you narrow down your results.  In this example we’ve narrowed our search down to European, large, chocolate cakes, that use nuts but don’t use cinnamon.

1. The category headings categorize recipes by Recipe Type, Ingredient, Course, Occasion and Ethnicity.  Expand out category heading to select the criteria you want to search by
2. As you select criteria, by clicking on the + on the right hand side, they will be added to the Filter box.  The green+ indicates to include in the search and the red- to exclude in the search

For more information go to More information about using Only Show

You can limit your recipe search results by using the Filter options.    In this example we are looking at the Filter options available within your own Bookshelf - the Library does not show Bookmark filters. 

1. Enter your search criteria
2. Tick on a filter box if you want to restrict your search to just recipes from Magazines, or blogs, or just online recipes.
3. If you have used Bookmarks you can select a Bookmarked group of recipes or books.

You can use the Search box to find recipes using a particular ingredient - use this as a quick search when you don't need to be too specific.   Or you can use the Only Show filter system - use this when you want to be quite specific. 

For instance chicken in the search box will give you every instance of chicken, including chicken stock.  Whereas using the filter you can select exactly the type of chicken you want and only get results for that - as in this example.

1. Select each ingredient like this:
   Ingredient/Meat, poultry & game/chicken/pieces
   Ingredient/dairy/yogurt/plain yogurt
   Ingredient/Herbs & spices/herbs/mint
   
   Add each ingredient to the filter by clicking on the + sign on the right hand side.
2. Once the selected ingredients are added to the filter area you can take them away by clicking on the x sign on the right hand side - or click on the + and that item becomes an excluded item.

For more information about using the Only Show Filter click here.

There are times when you want to exclude certain ingredients or categories from a search - you might be cooking for someone with allergies or you might want to do a chicken dish but not a curry.

You should remember though that store-cupboard ingredients such as flour and eggs are not listed in small quantities (less than one cup of flour and less than 4 eggs) so this won't be a completely accurate way to find recipes for food allergies.

1. Select the ingredient or category from the Only Show filter and add it by clicking on the + sign.  See the previous question for more information on this.
2. Click on the green circle, it changes to a red circle which indicates this ingredient or category will be excluded from your search.

There are further details of this in More information about using Only Show.

1. Select the amount of data you want to view by using the Expand/collapse toggle
2. Click on the printer icon

1. Enter the book title or author name in speech marks in the Recipes search terms box e.g. "Barefoot Contessa Cookbook" or "Ina Garten".
2. Add in any other search criteria.
3. You will then just see recipes in that book or by that author.

There may be times when you can't find a recipe in your own collection.  You can search the EYB Library for thousands of recipes with online links from cookbooks and magazines as well as great blogs and favorite recipes added by EYB members. 

1. Select EYB Library/Recipes
2. Tick the Online Recipes box in the 'Filter by...' box.
3. Enter search terms in the Quick Search box and/or:
4. Use the 'Only Show' filters to narrow down your search results.  For more help on this - click here.

Members can now index their own personal recipes on Eat Your Books.  So all those recipes that you've been clipping from magazines and been given by a friend or relative can be added to your Bookshelf.

Using the Personal Recipes data input form you have access to the EYB Library of ingredients and categories so your own recipes will be included in your searches.   To ensure they are added in a way consistent with EYB's own indexing system - there is a detailed Help file explaining each field and how EYB uses it.

For more information on personal indexing go to the Personal Recipes Indexing Manual.

To access the data input form just click on the Personal Recipes link in the left navigation bar and a blank input form will be displayed.  Click on the ? next to the heading to look at the manual.

Whenever you see a recipe on a food website that you like the look of, you can add it to your Bookshelf using the EYB Bookmarklet.  

To use the Bookmarklet feature, you first you have to install the Bookmarklet:

1. Go to your Home Page. Drag the Bookmarklet and drop it on to your favorites bar.
2. Depending on your browser type, it may look slightly different.
   
   
3. Whenever you see a recipe on a food website that you want to add to your Bookshelf, just click on the Bookmarklet and the EYB recipe index form will pop up.  Make sure you are signed in to EYB before you do this.
   
   
4. An EYB recipe indexing form will pop up for you to complete.  We take as much data as we can from the website - usually at least the recipe name and photo.  If there is no photo it means we are unable to copy it from the website.  To maintain a consistency and quality to the EYB recipe index, please take care to add correct data.  Click on each ? against the fields before you complete for the first time.  Once you save the recipe it will be added to your own Bookshelf and the EYB Library.
   Please Note:  If you do not want to complete the form to EYB's indexing standards - you can add it as a Personal Recipe which will only show in your Bookshelf. 

There isn't a simple way to install any Bookmarklet on the iPad or iPhone.  Several people have come up with workarounds and there is a way to do it following these steps.

1. Add this page as a Bookmark
2. Select and copy the Javascript below to your clipboard.
3. Go to your Bookmarks and edit the new Bookmark. Edit the name to "Add to EYB Recipes" and paste the Javascript in the field for the URL.
4. Done.

Copy everything below:

javascript:(function()%20{%20window.open('http://www.eatyourbooks.com/bookshelf/add-online-recipe?url='+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href), '_blank', 'location=no,links=no,scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,status=no,menubar=no,width=1040,height=800');%20})();

1. Make sure you have the Google Chrome Bookmarks bar turned on.  Select the spanner icon.  Then select Options. Then tick the box "Always show the bookmarks bar".
2. Go to your Home Page and select the "Add to EYB Recipes" button as shown on the screen below.
3. Drag it and drop it on your Bookmarks bar.  Your EYB Bookmarklet is installed.  It will display as shown below.

Next time you see a recipe from a website you'd like to add to your Bookshelf, just click on this Bookmarklet.  An EYB Indexing form will pop up - complete the information. 

Note:  All recipes added with the Bookmarklet will be added to the EYB Library and seen by all members.  If you do not want to complete the form - add the recipe as a Personal Recipe.

To add a single issue or a range of issues of a magazine, follow these instructions and you'll find yourself using them so much more.  

1. Select the Magazine tab.
2. Enter the name of the magazine you want to add.
3. You can sort the magazines by Date Published. 
4. Click on the +Bookshelf button to add to your Bookshelf.  
5. Click here if you want to add more than one issue, add the date range of the issues to add.
6. Tick, if you subscribe to the magazine and want new issues added automatically to your Bookshelf.  To unsubscribe click on the magazine title and click 'remove'. 

Any recipes that have online links from magazines can be added to your Bookshelf even if you don't own the magazine. The online link will take you to the recipe on the magazine website  More information about recipes online.

There are many wonderful food blogs and websites that have great recipes.  You can now add them to your Bookshelf and include them in your recipe searches.

1. Select the Blog tab
2. Click on the +Bookshelf button to add to your Bookshelf. 
3. If you want to review the recipes before you add the blog, just click on the name and you will see a list of the recipes from that website - the most recent recipes will show first.  

There is a recipe online link alongside each recipe.  If you click on this link you will be taken to the recipe on the website.    More information about recipe online.

There is also a +Bookshelf button - this will only appear where there is a recipe online link.  You can now add individual recipes to your Bookshelf.

You can add any recipe that has an online link to your Bookshelf, regardless of where it comes from.  Not all recipes on EYB have these links, they will be found:

• Blogs and Websites - all have online links.
• Cookbooks - if an official version of the recipe exists online - we will link to it.  These are usually on an author, publisher, magazine or newspaper's website.
• Magazines - some magazines also have online versions of the recipes from the printed magazine on the magazine website.  We will link to these.
• Member Added Recipes - using the Bookmarklet feature, any member can add a recipe from the internet to their own Bookshelf, and the EYB Library.

To add online recipes to your Bookshelf - go to Library:

1. Enter a search term (optional - you can scroll through all recipes)
2. Tick the Online Recipes  box
3. To add any recipe to your Bookshelf click on +Bookshelf
4. Status changes when recipe added.  Any online recipes that are from cookbooks that are already on your Bookshelf will show this status
5. This recipe comes from the Simply Recipes blog
6. This recipe comes from The Silver Palate cookbook
7. This recipe comes from Bon Appétit magazine

Whenever you see a Recipe or Book that you want to keep track of in any way - tag it with a Bookmark. 

1. Click on Bookmark
2. Either select a Bookmark from your list OR click on New and add a new Bookmark.  Click on Save 
3. Shows Bookmark tags for this Recipe or Book
4. Use Show Only when you want to search for Recipes that are tagged with a particular Bookmark  OR
   Use Look In when you want to search for Recipes in Books that are tagged with a particular Bookmark

See How do I use Bookmarks for more information

1. Select the Bookmarks tab
2. Expand out the Bookmark
3. Click on the x to delete the recipe or book from this Bookmark

To organize your cookbook collection you may have shelves for different kinds of books, fold over pages, use yellow stickies, paper lists, books with notes - or you keep it all in your head.  

Whichever method you use - it just got simpler.  You can keep track of recipes and books by just tagging them with a Bookmark.  Once you create a Bookmark you can use them to narrow down your searches. 

For Books you might want to use Bookmarks to:

• Keep track of cookbooks in different locations - even different shelves
• If you have the same cookbook in 2 locations - just Bookmark it with each location tag
• Favorite books - add and take books off as you like
• Books you have on loan from the library - an easy way to include these books in your search and then easy to delete when you return them
• Books you loan to friends - easy to keep track of them.  A reason to ask for it back when a recipe appears in your searches that you want to do

For Recipes you might want to use Bookmarks to:

• Create a list of recipes for a menu for a dinner party, social gathering or just the meals for the week
• If you grow your own fruit or vegetables and are always looking at ways to use them up - create a Bookmark that you can tag a recipe with for plums, zucchini or whatever as you see them come up in your searches
• Browsing through a new cookbook we always see recipes we like the look of - tag your recipes as you go with a Bookmark with names like Comfort Food, Sunday Lunches, Must Dos - the list is endless

How do I add recipes to a Shopping List?

   1. Click on the Recipe Name to take you to the Recipe Details page
   2. Click on Add to shopping list

Your Recipe is now added to your Shopping List.   Make sure you have cleared your Shopping List of any old Recipes before you add new ones.

1. Select Shopping List
2. To print a Shopping List click on Print List
3. To clear a Shopping List click on Clear List