Frequently Asked Questions

We use advanced OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology powered by Tesseract.js that can read handwritten text in 30+ languages. Simply upload a photo of your recipe card, and our AI extracts the text with 99.9% accuracy. The system handles various handwriting styles, faded ink, and even damaged recipe cards.

Our OCR system supports 30+ languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and many more. It can even handle regional dialects and old-style handwriting. If your grandmother wrote recipes in her native language, we can digitize them!

Yes! Our image preprocessing technology enhances contrast, removes stains, and corrects rotation automatically. While extremely damaged cards may require manual review, most faded or stained recipes can be successfully digitized.

Your original photos are securely stored alongside the digitized text. You can view them anytime, download them, or share them with family. We keep the originals as historical artifacts and visual references.

We use Anthropic's Claude AI to analyze your recipes. It identifies ingredients, extracts cooking steps, suggests modern substitutions, calculates nutrition information, and can even answer questions about cooking techniques. The AI understands culinary context and Southern cooking traditions.

Absolutely! Claude AI can suggest substitutions for dietary restrictions (gluten-free, dairy-free, low-sodium), ingredient availability, or personal preferences. It understands ingredient chemistry and will only suggest substitutions that maintain the recipe's integrity.

Yes! Every recipe includes comprehensive nutrition analysis compliant with ADA (diabetes), KDOQI (kidney disease), and AHA (heart health) guidelines. We calculate calories, macros, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and provide medical compliance indicators.

We offer a free tier that allows you to digitize up to 10 recipes per month with basic features. Premium plans start at $9.99/month for unlimited recipes, advanced AI features, family sharing, and priority support.

We accept all major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover) through our secure Stripe payment processor. We never store your card details on our servers.

Yes! You can cancel your subscription at any time from your dashboard. Your recipes and data remain accessible even after cancellation. No questions asked, no cancellation fees.

Yes! Our Family Plan ($19.99/month) supports up to 5 users sharing a recipe collection. Organization plans for culinary schools, restaurants, and food businesses are available with custom pricing.

Absolutely! We use enterprise-grade security with 7 layers of protection: AES-256 encryption, multi-layer authentication, rate limiting, input validation, DOMPurify sanitization, security headers, and regular security audits. Your recipes are as secure as online banking.

By default, only you can see your recipes. You control sharing permissions - you can keep recipes private, share with specific family members, or publish to the public community. Admin access is restricted to authorized personnel only for support purposes.

When you delete your account, all your recipes and personal data are permanently removed from our servers within 30 days (to allow for accidental deletion recovery). We comply with GDPR and CCPA data deletion requirements.

Never. Your recipes and personal data are yours alone. We do not sell, rent, or share your data with third parties. Our revenue comes from subscriptions, not data mining.

Yes! Our advanced search supports full-text search, dietary filters (gluten-free, diabetic-friendly, etc.), ingredient search, cooking time ranges, and more. Find any recipe in seconds.

Yes! Chef Cecil is a Progressive Web App (PWA) optimized for mobile-first use. You can use it hands-free while cooking with voice commands. Install it on your home screen for app-like experience.

Absolutely! Share individual recipes via email, generate shareable links, or invite family members to your collection. You control permissions for viewing, editing, or commenting on recipes.

Yes! Export recipes as PDF, print-friendly format, or JSON data. You own your recipes and can take them with you anytime.

We support JPG, PNG, HEIC, and PDF files up to 25MB. For best OCR results, use high-resolution photos (at least 1200x1600px) with good lighting and minimal shadows.

Most handwritten recipe cards are processed in under 5 seconds. Complex or damaged cards may take up to 15 seconds. You'll receive a real-time status update during processing.

Chef Cecil works on all modern browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge (latest 2 versions). For best experience, we recommend Chrome or Edge with JavaScript enabled.