How to scan a cookbook page into a recipe

What you need

• Tableful on iPhone
• The page, flat and lit
• A recipe that fits in one frame, or two photos if it runs across a spread

Step by step

1. Flatten the page

A curved page near the spine is the single biggest cause of a bad read. Press the book open, or photograph the left and right pages separately and import them as two goes at the same recipe.

2. Light it from the side

Overhead light puts your own shadow across the ingredients, and a window behind you puts glare on glossy paper. Turn the book so the light comes across it.

3. Get the whole recipe in frame

Ingredients and method both. If the ingredients sit in a sidebar in smaller type, move closer and take two photos rather than one wide one.

4. Tap Photograph a page

On the Today tab, choose Photograph a page and take the shot or pick it from your library. Your phone reads the text on the page first, and the picture and the text are read together, which is what catches a smudged fraction.

5. Read what came back, closely

This is the step people skip. Check the quantities and the oven temperature against the page. Anything Tableful could not read is left blank rather than filled in with a plausible guess, so a blank is a signal, not a bug.

6. Set the servings and save

Put it in a collection while you are there. A shelf of books turns into something searchable surprisingly quickly.

When it does not work

• The read is nonsense. Almost always the photo. Retake it flatter, closer and brighter before trying anything else.
• Fractions came out wrong. Small vulgar fractions are the hardest glyphs on a printed page. Check every one against the book and fix them by hand.
• The recipe runs over a page turn. Import the first page, then add the remaining steps by editing the recipe.
• Nothing readable was found. You will be told, rather than handed a recipe whose ingredients are “g”, “ml” and “1/21”. Retake the shot.

Questions people ask

Does the photo leave my phone?

The picture is sent to Tableful to be read and the recipe comes back. It is not added to any public feed, and the recipe lands in your own kitchen.

Can it read handwriting?

Yes. That has its own guide, because faded ink and cursive need a slightly different approach.

Can I scan a screenshot instead of a photo?

Yes, and it is the workaround for everything else on this site: a comment holding the real recipe, a carousel slide, a paywalled page you subscribe to. Screenshot it and use the same route.

Related guides

Save a handwritten family recipe: faded ink, cursive and “bake until done”.

Scale a recipe: old cookbooks feed six.

Import from a website: faster when the book has a website.

Make a weekly meal plan: what the shelf is for.

Tableful vs Paprika: how a mature recipe organiser handles a library.

Reviewed September 2026. Tableful can only read content it can reach: private, deleted, region-restricted or paywalled posts may not be readable. Nutrition figures are estimates for meal decisions, not medical advice.