Import recipes
Turn photos, PDFs, or spreadsheets of recipes into recipes in your recipe book, without typing in every amount.
Import recipes takes a photo or a PDF of a recipe—a page from a notebook, a screenshot, a scan—and turns it into a structured recipe inside AreaCacao: with its ingredients linked to the catalog, its amounts, and its steps. If your recipe book already lives in a spreadsheet, the same screen imports it from CSV or Excel, with no AI and no credits. You only review what the import flags.
What does it solve?
Digitizing a paper recipe book by hand is slow and error-prone. AI does the first draft for you: it reads the image, extracts what it recognizes, and leaves you an editable recipe. It doesn't replace your judgment—it's a starting point you review before you go into production.
How to get there
In the sidebar, under FORMULATION, open Import recipes. It takes you to https://app.areacacao.com/import-recipe, and the screen's own title is also Import recipes.
Below the title, the screen sums up what it does: "Upload photos or PDFs of your recipes and we'll add them to your recipe book. You can also see your import history here."
The screen has two tabs:
- Upload new — the Photo or PDF (with AI) card, where you drag or select your files, and the CSV or Excel (no credits) card for importing from a spreadsheet.
- History — the inbox with your photo and PDF imports, their status, and their warnings.
Import a photo or PDF
How do I upload a recipe and what happens while AI processes it?
Import from CSV or Excel
Are your recipes in a spreadsheet? Import them in bulk, with no credits.
Import a recipe from a URL
Not available yet: how importing from a link will work.
Import history
Where do I see the status of each import and its warnings?
Extraction confidence
How do I know what AI read correctly and what I need to review?
Limits and best practices
What does AI do well, and what should you always check by hand?
The essentials in one sentence
Upload up to 10 files at a time (JPG, PNG, WebP, or PDF, up to 20 MB each). The app first checks that each file is a recipe: if it's an invoice, a packing slip, or some other document, it doesn't import it and doesn't charge you anything. When the import reaches Ready, the recipe is already saved in your recipe book; click Open recipe to review it in the editor. Each file uses credits, at two rates: 15 credits per photo and 25 credits per PDF—the screen shows them before processing. Your plan only changes how many credits you have available, not what each import costs; on the older free accounts, created before sign-up required choosing a plan, CSV or Excel import is also unavailable and every imported recipe counts toward their 5-recipe cap.