MenuTome is a cookbook maker that runs on your own Windows PC. You put your recipes in; it lays them out, calculates the spine, and writes a print-ready interior PDF and a matching cover PDF, set up for the Amazon KDP upload. There is no account, and nothing leaves your computer unless you ask it to. The free basic tier makes one finished book of up to 15 pages, watermarked, without the Amazon print package; the KDP print package is part of Pro.
Download MenuTome for Windows — the installer is on GitHub.
What it actually does
1. Collect
Type recipes in, drop in a file or a photo, import from a web page, or photograph a page from a notebook. The app pulls ingredients, quantities and steps apart into proper fields, so the same recipe can be re-laid out later without retyping.
2. Design
Name a theme and the app drafts a concept, a chapter plan and the connecting texts. Layout, chapter colours, page numbering styles and a live preview are part of the program, not an add-on.
3. Export
Out comes a print-ready interior PDF at the trim size you picked, with bleed and the fixed gutter of that trim size, plus a cover PDF at the exact width of back cover, spine and front cover. For Amazon trim sizes, the book check compares that gutter with Amazon’s minimum for your page count. Afterwards the app measures the sheet of the file it has just written — trim size plus bleed — against the size it worked out, and stops the export if the two do not match. That is a check of the sheet size, not a full print check: catching a wrong sheet at home is cheaper than a rejected upload.
Details on both: KDP trim size, bleed and margins · spine width calculator.
Who it is for
- Self-publishers who want to sell a cookbook on Amazon KDP and keep the rights and the royalties.
- Food creators who already have the recipes and the photographs, and need the book around them.
- Families making one copy of grandmother’s recipes to give away — the same print files work at any print shop.
MenuTome is not a restaurant or catering tool, and it does not manage a menu for a kitchen. It makes books.
Why a desktop program and not a website
- No account, no sign-up. You install it and start. There is no login in the Windows app.
- Your recipes stay on your PC. They live in a file on your own disk, not on our server. We do not have a copy.
- It works offline. Only the optional AI features need a connection.
- Large photo books do not have to travel. A cookbook with two hundred photographs is laid out on your own machine, at full resolution.
The AI part, described honestly
The AI in MenuTome structures what you give it and writes around it: chapter introductions, headnotes, a back-cover text, a concept. It does not invent recipes for you. What comes out is your material, rearranged and written up.
Text the AI produced is labelled as AI-generated inside the app, as required by Article 50 of the EU AI Act. That matters beyond Europe: Amazon KDP asks every author, at upload, whether the content is AI-generated or AI-assisted. You are the one who answers that question, and you should be able to answer it accurately.
There is no cloud AI included in a subscription. A local model runs on your own machine at no cost; if you would rather use a commercial model, you enter your own provider key and it is billed to you by that provider, not by us.
What you get out, and where it can go
You get files, not a printed book — MenuTome does not print and does not ship. The interior and cover PDFs are built to Amazon KDP’s published print specification, and the same files can be uploaded to other print-on-demand services such as epubli or BoD, or handed to a local print shop.
One honest limitation: the spine calculation uses Amazon’s paper thicknesses. Other printers use their own paper, so if you print elsewhere, ask them for their thickness per page and check the spine against it. The app says so in its own changelog as well.
Requirements
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Operating system | Windows. There is no macOS version yet; one is in the works. |
| Account | None. The app has no login. |
| Internet | Only for optional AI features and updates. |
| Interface languages | English and German, switchable in the app at any time. The book itself can be written in 20 languages. |
| Book language | Independent of the interface — you can run the app in English and set a Spanish cookbook. |
Windows may warn you during installation (“Windows protected your PC”, “unknown publisher”). That warning appears for every installer that does not yet carry a purchased code-signing certificate; ours does not yet. Click “More info”, then “Run anyway”. Only do that for the file you downloaded from menutome.com yourself.
Questions
Is there a free cookbook maker for Windows?
Yes — the basic tier of MenuTome. It makes one finished book of up to 15 pages, with a watermark on the exported pages, and does not include the Amazon print package, which is part of Pro; collecting recipes and drafting books is unlimited on every tier.
Does it work without an internet connection?
Yes. Only the optional AI features need one.
Do I need an Amazon account to use it?
No. You need one to publish on Amazon KDP, but not to use MenuTome or to produce the files.
Can I sell the book I make?
Yes. The rights to your book and the earnings from it are yours.
Is there a Mac version?
Not yet. Windows only, at the moment.
Download MenuTome for Windows · Ask us a question
Amazon and Amazon KDP are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. They are named here only to identify the service these files are prepared for. MenuTome is an independent product and is not affiliated with Amazon.