How To Make Your Own Cookbook Using Publisher

Do you have the desire to have all of your family favorite recipes in one cookbook? Do you find yourself calling your mom often for a recipe? Do you wish to pass on recipes from your childhood to your kiddos one day?

About 10 years ago, I wanted to make a family cookbook. I had written down several recipes from my mom when my husband and I had gotten married, but I knew there were more. Not only that, my sisters also had some great recipes that I thought would be fun sharing in it. So I decided to make my own. It wasn’t the easiest, but once I got the hang of the printing process, it went okay and it was the cookbook in our home that was the most loved. Which meant there was plenty of food spilled on it and the binder was falling apart!

Fast forward to this year, 10 years later, and I got the itch to update our family cookbook, since like I said, mine was falling apart. I had hoped to use an online program, but after doing much research, the more I realized it would not be cost effective. There are many programs out there, but either you have to have a minimum order (of a lot!) or you have to pay a fortune for each. So I went back to the drawing board and decided to try and make my own.

Thankfully my husband has made “booklets” in the past, so I decided to try and use his template in Publisher for the cookbook. And I tell you what, it was PERFECT. I had so much fun making it, even though it does take some time to type in all those recipes. But I absolutely LOVE how it turned out. After I finished it, I kept thinking, maybe there are others who would want to do the same? So I decided to share how I made my family cookbook using Publisher with you, in hopes that you too, can create a family recipe book that you can pass on down for generations to come!

I am going to go into about every detail, but I want to do so, so that you can create a family cookbook with ease!

What’s Needed:

I started off by buying some 5.5×8.5 binders from Amazon. Of course you could do any size, but this tutorial is for creating a 5.5×8.5 cookbook. I got a binder with a front sleeve so that I could insert a DIY cover page. I created a cover page using the photo editing program, PicMonkey. I’ve used it for years and I know Canva is another great one, but I’m so used to PicMonkey, that I just stick with it.

I also created a little slide in for the binding as well, using PicMonkey.

Then I created just a simple cover page that included our family picture. I purchased a good quality cardstock, instead of just using regular printer paper for a few reasons: would hold up to spills better, doesn’t bleed through when printing, and hopefully will last longer. I purchased a 67 lb., 94 brightness ream from Amazon, and it was the perfect thickness. Of course I didn’t use all 325 sheets, but it’s a great paper to have in stock for a kiddo who loves to do crafts!

I also had purchased tabs to use on my category dividers and created little tags for them as well.

Of course you can create whatever recipe categories you would like, but I created 8:

Appetizers/Beverages
Breads
Soups/Salads
Side Dishes
Main Dishes
Cakes/Pies
Cookies/Bars
Miscellaneous

I have a 3-hole punch for the pages, which made inserting them MUCH easier!

Now that we covered the book details, now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of creating the actual pages:

Like I said, this cookbook tutorial uses Publisher. I’m sure you could use other programs, but I found this to be the easiest:

Create a new Publisher document and click on “MORE BLANK PAGE SIZES“:

Scroll down to the folders and choose “BOOKLET“.

For this tutorial, I created a 5.5×8.5 booklet:

As soon as you choose the 5.5×8.5 size, it will automatically bring up this screen. Choose “YES“.

Once you click yes above, you will be brought to the main screen. Go ahead and click the “PAGE DESIGN” tab. Then go to “MARGINS” and choose “CUSTOM MARGINS” at the bottom:

Now in the Layout Guide, the only number you have to change is the “INSIDE” number to 0.7. This allows room to put the punches in to bind the cookbook. Of course you could do more room if you want too. Under “BASELINE GUIDES” I also changed both numbers (spacing and offset) to 12 pt. Then click “OK“.

Click the “INSERT” tab and find the “DRAW TEXT BOX” icon. Click and your cursor will turn into a plus sign. Now draw the size box you need to either fit a category title or recipe page. To create a recipe page, just create a text box that fits within the border already there. You can always adjust the size as needed, so don’t feel you have to get it right the first time!

After drawing a text box and inserting the text you desire, you can modify the text box and get rid of the border by right clicking the text box. Then choose format tex tbox and from there, you can decide if you want a border or not. Now you will need more pages! Click “INSERT” once again, and choose “PAGE“. Click the “INSERT DUPLICATE PAGE.”

Then choose “INSERT DUPLICATE OF BOTH PAGES.” It’s going to duplicate the previous page, so if you want to duplicate a recipe page, make sure you have that page selected on the left side (highlighted in blue).

Now comes the big ole task of typing up all of your recipes! Here are the formatting options I chose:

Century Gothic font
Title: 14 size font, bold, caps
Ingredients: 10 size font, bold
Directions: 10 size font
I also created a line to separate the title from recipe. To do this, under the “INSERT” tab, choose “SHAPES” and there is a “LINE” option. I will admit, it’s hard to get it straight, so once you “draw” a good one, just copy and paste that one, so you don’t have to keep re-drawing it.
I also chose to put the “author” of each recipe under the line so I know who to go to with questions and compliments!

TIME TO PRINT! Things to consider, as each printer is different:

Do you want to print all of the pages at once?
Printer should automatically choose “Booklet”.
PRINT ON BOTH SIDES. Our printer did not do this automatically, so I had to manually flip the pages once a set was done, but the printer guided me through it. I did do a practice page to make sure I got it right. It sounds complicated, but it was honestly very easy.
Then choose color or grayscale, depends what you have included.
Click “PRINT“!

A couple of things to keep in mind:

Can add a footer or page number to the bottom, if desired.
If you are making dividers, remember to leave a blank page on the back. So for instance, I always wanted my divider to be on the right side (think booklet). I left page 4 blank and would start my recipes on page 5 and continue on.
If you are making multiple cookbooks, when printing, only do one at a time.
Print a draft so that you can proofread it before you officially publish it. I’m sure you will still find mistakes (I know I have!), but this helps visualize what you like and don’t like about it.
Before you type of up your whole cookbook with the font formatting, print one page after you have it done and see if you like it. I did not do this, and I didn’t like the size of the title of each recipe, so I had to go through and change each individual title. Save yourself time and check it early on!

What’s nice about creating the cookbook in PUBLISHER is you can add pages as needed and also easily print it again if someone else wants a copy!

I know this is something I absolutely treasure and pull out multiple times a week to cook out of. I hope as you get started, you find joy in creating a tangible memory of your family food favs.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at: kristin.sterk@gmail.com.

Happy Cooking!