How to organize recipes with snapshots in iShopNCook app (OCR)
  • 4
    Oct

How to organize recipes with snapshots in iShopNCook app (OCR)

You can literally add a recipe to the new iShopNCook app for iPhone in a few seconds, just by taking a picture.

The text of the recipes is recognized by OCR online (OCR stands for optical character recognition), the ingredients and quantities are then analyzed by Shop’NCook engine, and the recipe is sent back to the iPhone fully formatted and broken down into a list of ingredients, quantities and preparation instructions.

The OCR function works with a lot of different formats of recipes and allows you to add effortlessly recipes from any kind of media – newspapers, magazine, cookbooks, computer screens, etc.

There are however a few tricks you need to know for the best results:

  • Make sure you have a good light when you take the pictures.
  • Focus the camera on the text of the recipes. You can tap on the screen of the iPhone to adjust the focus.
  • Hide any characters that do not belong to the recipe.
  • Make sure the title of the recipe is on the first line of the recipe.
  • Rotate the camera, so that the text of the recipe fills up an area of the screen as large as possible.
  • Make sure that the orientation of the camera button corresponds to the orientation of the text. If it doesn’t, raise briefly the camera vertically in desired orientation to allow the iPhone the correct its orientation.
  • After taking the picture, make sure that the entire recipe text is in the picture and well readable. If you have problems reading the picture, the OCR will too!
  • Don’t forget to select the correct language if the recipe is not in the default language, as it will affect the accuracy of the OCR.

The OCR function is also very dependent on the quality of the camera. If you have a first generation iPhone, the resolution may not be sufficient, except for very short recipes.

Watch me adding recipes to my iPhone from cookbooks in different formats and languages in the video above!

Get iShopNCook now!

iShopNCook Recipe & Shopping List app - QR code - App Store

4 Comments

  1. Carme Engel says:

    i do not have an IPhone but plan to get an IPad for Christmas. Will this app work on an IPad?
    Great job of organizing collections of recipes!
    Carme

    • Mathilde says:

      Carme,

      The app is not optimized for the iPad, but will run on iPad. I plan to make another app later on that takes advantage of the iPad larger screen and more specialized for the kitchen, rather than the shopping.

  2. Laura says:

    Are you planning on an android version any time soon? I hope so.