or make a personalized cookbook on your kindle!

I have joined the insanity that is Pinterest – the online pinboard site that lets you create boards by subject and then “pin” things you find on the internet to the boards you have created as well as follow others who have similar interests and “repin” what they find on your board. A visual representation of your finding is created, you add a short description and Pinterest creates a link to the website.

Fun but what if I want to access that recipe I found last week that would be perfect for supper and I really don’t want to take the time to go to Pinterest, find my board, click to the website, and jot down the directions??

There is a cool website that allows you to drag a bookmarklet to your browser toolbar. (If you already use Pinterest, you probably have the “Pin It” bookmarklet on your toolbar)

This bookmarklet works the same way.  The website is  http://dotepub.com/  and FIRST you check a box on the right sidebar to tell it whether you want mobi files for kindle or epub files for other ereaders (including your iPad). Now drag the bookmarklet to your toolbar.

Go to the webpage that has the cool recipe and click the bookmarklet (mine says mobi because I use a Kindle). You now download the file. The pictures and ads are stripped away and you have a file that contains the text of the recipe.

I made a folder I can drag my recipes and articles to and then when I have a few collected I go to the Kindle.

You will connect our Kindle to your computer via the usb cable. It will show up just like a flash drive. Double click to open and you will see several folders. The books live in the Documents folder. That is where you will drag your newly created mobi files. I suspect the process is similar on a nook, but I am not sure what the folders are called.

Once the files are on the Kindle, go to the list of books, navigate to a recipe, and press the right side of the controller. From the menu choose add to collection.  If this is the first time, click down to add new collection. Type Recipes or Cookbook or whatever you want to name it. The recipe will be added to the collection. Do this for each recipe.

Done

I also use Calibre for keeping up with my books and within Calibre you can edit metadata. The file will have a  long number in the name eliminate that. I was happy to see that Calibre automatically added the originating website as the author so I can always go back to refer to it.

I also emailed one of the mobi files to myself and downloaded on my iPad which knew to ask me if I wanted to open the file in the Kindle app.

I then converted a recipe to epub using dotepub.com and emailed it to myself. When I clicked the attachment on my iPad it knew to ask if I wanted to open it in iBooks (which also lets you create collections)

In both iBooks and Kindle, the recipes (or articles) will be listed in alphabetical order within the collection. I have been trying to think of a way to organize them within the collection in case you decide to save a bazillion recipes this way.  Off the top of my head, I think you could create a number code – 1 for main dish, 2 for side dish, 3 for dessert – or something similar. If you rename the files before you put them on your ereader using the number as the first character you will organize them one step further.

Remember there will be NO pictures. The pictures are stripped away, so if this is a recipe, project, tutorial that you need pictures for, you may want to try something different.

If you find other cool ways to use dotepub.com leave me a comment and tell me about it.