food storage planner guide

8/3/2019 Food Storage Planner Guide

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FSP 4.1 User Guide 1

User Guide

Version 4.1


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Telephone Support

Please read carefully the instructions in this guide. It was writtento be straightforward and intuitive. If you experience any prob-

lems in the installation process or the normal use of the software

that we have not explained, feel free to call. You may receive

telephone support free of charge for up to 30 days from purchase

date, provided you register online at www.revelar.com/

register.html. After the 30-day period, phone support calls will be

charged. You may call Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to5:00 p.m. Mountain Time, or by appointment, at this number:

800-669-5191

Have your serial number handy, and where possible, be seated

at your computer with the software ready. We have found that we

can help you best when we walk through the problem right on

your screen. It is not uncommon for us to take your name and

number and then return your call, when someone is available to

help you. If this is the case, please be patient with us, since we

will return your call as soon as possible.

Web Support

Selecting "Go to Online

Support" under the Help

menu will launch your

browser and take you to our

TechnicalSupport


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Support web page. First read through our Frequently Asked Ques-

tions (FAQs) links to see if you can quickly solve your problem.

You can also manually go to: www.revelar.com/support.html

Email Support

If your problem is not answered in the FAQs, fill out the form on

the Support page, and press the "Submit" button. Unlimited free

Email support is given, during and after the 30-day telephonesupport limit. Email support is always answered first thing in the

morning and is given preference over telephone support. This is

an incentive for you to submit your question or problem via email.


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Thank you for choosing Food Storage Planner (FSP) for Win-

dows systems. FSP gives you a realistic tool for planning, rotat-

ing, and using your storage. With discipline, you can gain a greater

sense of self-reliance and security by planning for the future. Many

have asked us, "How did you come up with these items and quan-

tities?" The food items pre-listed on the Supermarket List are

based on survival needs for generally one year. The quantities

and variety of items are suggested by the U.S. Department of

Agriculture, the South Dakota and Utah State University Exten-

sion Services, the Welfare Department of The Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and local food storage specialists.

More often than not, these sources disagreed on required

amounts. We carefully analyzed each "Survival" item and merged

the consensus of the sources, slanting generously. This approach

insures, in time of crisis, that you will have the required minimum

and perhaps just a little bit more.

Features For Version 4.x

w Menu Planning: Menu plan report added with fields to

allow you to specify favorite recipes to be prepared for

your goal period and see ingredients needed to prepare

them.

w Recipe File Redesigned. Recipes are now more easilyaccessed and viewed, with additional fields for calculat-

ing and adjusting recipes and ingredients. Ingredients are

now linked to and calculated from your open pantry or

pantries.

Welcome


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w Recipe Drag and Drop is now supported. You can drag

and drop recipe "cards" from one Chapter to another in

your Recipe Book.

w Import/Export Recipes. Now you can share recipes with

other FSP users. Watch for our online recipe database so

you can download new food storage and other recipes.

Send us your recipes too so we can share them with oth-

ers!

w Pantry File Redesigned. Item notes are now on the bot-

tom of the screen. You no longer need to click a button toread them. Detail section expanded with Recipe Conver-

sion Factor added.

w Supermarket expanded from 389 to 650+ items with 10

new aisles.

w Pantry Item Drag and Drop is now supported. You can

drag and drop items from one aisle to another in the Su-permarket. You can also drag items from an aisle to the

recipe window and have it add the item to the selected

recipe's ingredients.

w Online Support Access. Now you can get web support by

selecting a menu item from the Help menu.

w New Color Icon Bar. Easy access to the reports you usemost.

w Drag & Drop Report Columns. In reports, you can now

drag columns to your preference for printing and Shift +

clicking a column title will reset the sort order of the report

to that column.

w Decimal Support. You are no longer restricted to wholenumbers (integers) when calculating, buying, and rotating

your food storage items.

w Register Online Link. Now you can register your copy of

FSP by selecting a menu item.


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w Supermarket Sort Persistence. FSP now remembers how

you last sorted your Supermarket.

wAdded Purchase Note to Purchase dialog. This was oursecond most requested feature and allows you to note

where you purchased the item and how much you paid,

giving you a track record to see if your costs are going up

or if you are watching those sale discounts carefully!

w #10 Can Conversion Chart. We changed the food storage

list (fsl) from #10 cans to LBS. Those who utilize home or

church canning equipment, can now use the "No.10 CanConversion" chart we have included in this version. This

PDF document was converted for us by a cannery and

should be accurate, but we have not verified it. We also

know that it is not comprehensive. It includes LBS and

KILOGRAM conversions. Find the conversion chart un-

der the START button, then Programs, then Food Storage

Planner.

System Requirements (Minimum)

w 486/ 66 or Pentium processor computer with CD-ROM

drive.

w 32 Mb RAM.

w Windows 95b, 98, NT, ME, 2000, or XP.


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What's on the CD...

w Food Storage Planner 4.1 and associated files.

w Read Me document containing last minute information.

w Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 for Windows.

w This User Guide in PDF format.

Installation

Insert the FSP CD into your CD-ROM drive. A few moments later

the FSP installer will automatically launch and began installing

FSP. You will be prompted a few times to:

1) Continue with the Setup;2) Accept or Decline the License Agreement;

3) Finish with installation and open the Read Me file;

After installation is complete, you may be prompted to restart your

computer. After that, you can see the FSP and the FSP User Guide

icons on the desktop and the FSP folder in the Start menu (Start

> Programs > Food Storage Planner 4.1) .

InstallationRegistration


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Adobe Acrobat Reader and PDF Files

By purchasing FSP on CD, you have received this printed User

Guide. Updates to the User Guide, however, will be made as PDFfiles which require Adobe Acrobat Reader software to display and

print them. These will be available for download off our web site

(www.revelar.com) and announced via email to registered users.

The Reader software is free and we have included it on the FSP

CD.

Register Your Copy With Revelar Software

In order to receive technical support and be eligible for upgrades,

you will need to register your software. If you purchased your

individual copy of FSP directly from Revelar, you must still reg-

ister your software.

Register your copy by selecting the Register Online menu item

under the Help menu as shown below. First you will need to

launch your software as explained in the next chapter.

Online registrants are first to receive the latest information about

updates and special offers. If you do not have internet access,you may register by telephone Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. -

4 p.m. MT at this number: 800-669-5191.


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Registration in the Application

To register your copy of FSP with your serial number:

1. Launch FSP on your computer by double-clicking its icon

or select it from the START menu.

The Registration window opens as shown here:

2. Enter your serial number.

Remember to enter all letters in upper case and there are no

letter "O"s, only zeros. A sticker with your serial number is either

on the outside or inside the front cover of this User Guide.

3. Press the OK button to close the Registration window.

w If you are just investigating the software and have not

purchased a serial number yet, you may press the Not

Yet button. The program will be fully functional, exceptthat the quantities of items returned are randomly and

grossly overrated. DO NOT buy food storage based upon

these erroneous amounts.


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4. After entering a valid serial number, FSP automatically

opens a new dialog asking if you want a new Pantry or Recipe

Book file. Select Pantry and click OK.

This will open the Setup dialog as shown on the next page, so

just skip step 1 on page 12, and go to step 2.

Converting FSP 2.0x, 3.0, or 3.1 Files

Depending on where you have stored your pre-4.0 version pan-

try file and it's name, FSP 4.0 may automatically launch your pre-

vious file. If it does, you will be asked to convert it as shown in

this alert:


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Selecting Yes will add new items and aisles to your current fam-

ily file, plus include Recipe Conversion factors. Selecting No con-

verts your file to version 4.0, but adds none of the former. Since

you have already entered your Setup information, skip to page16.

NOTE: We suggest saving a back up copy of your old file prior to

making the conversion.


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Setting Up Your Pantry

1. After launching FSP, select New under the File menu.

The Setup dialog will appear with the Family icon selected and

the Family Overview showing:

2. Click on the New button.

Setting Up


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3. Type in the name of each person in your family, select

their gender, and type in their birth date.

Here you are adding family members by sex and size for FSP todetermine how much this person will consume. These factors, of

course, are only estimates and are based upon USDA statistics.

You should adjust the factors based upon your particular needs.

A factor of "1" is the norm for an adult male or female. Make

certain you type in the date field as shown above (mm/dd/yyyy).

4. Repeat this for each family member and when finished,

click on the Goals icon at the left below the Family icon.

The Family Overview closes and the Goals view opens:


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5. Enter the number of weeks, months, or years you want tostore food for.

Default is 12 months or a year's supply of food. This is a recom-mended figure, if you can afford it, since it gives you a full year toprepare, plant, and harvest crops in the event of catastrophic

collapse of the food source infrastructure.

6. Click on a date in the calendar to set your goal.

IMPORTANT: You MUST CLICK on the DAY besides selectingfrom the Month and Year drop down lists.

This is the goal date you will set to get your storage completed,not the time period in which you will consume your storage. The

default start date is today! Don't put it off any longer!

7. Select from the Interval drop down list the interval withwhich you will buy your storage.

In the example above, we have selected "Monthly," indicating that

we will purchase some storage once per month.

Planning Summary

w The Planning Summary gives you the total amount you

will need to spend for your family's storage based upon

the following: Your storage goal, the unit price of all the

items, and the Priority showing in the Supermarket. You

are also given the approximate amount you will need to

budget based upon your selected purchase interval.

w You can update your storage goal or goal date at any time

and FSP will recalculate.


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w As family members age, they are automatically moved into

different categories. FSP adjusts your storage needs based

upon current birthdays and ages.

w Anytime you make purchases, add or delete items, or

change item prices the planning summary is updated.

If you miss your Goal date, you can go back to this Setup windowat any time (select Setup... under the Edit menu) and reset the

date by clicking on a new one in the calendar. The Planning Sum-

mary recalculates your total.

8. Click OK when finished setting up your family and goals.

The Setup window closes and the Pantry View appears as ex-plained in the next two sections.


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The Pantry File (.fsp) consists of the Pantry View, the Super

market , and four reports: Summary, Shopping List , Pantry List

and Rotation. Subsequent chapters will explain the usage of eac

of these, but the navigation of the pages are shown here:

Online Support

Menu Plan & IngredientSummary (Recipe Reports)

4 Pantry Reports

Find

Menu Bar

The PantryFile

Export

File Operations

Aisle

Items

Pantry ViewSupermarket

Pantry section &

Purchase Table

Percent Complete

of Goal for this item


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The Pantry View is the main work area in FSP. It sits to the right

of the Supermarket. As you click on items in the Supermarket,

they load into the Pantry View where you can see the detail for

each item such as unit cost, vendor, quantity needed for your

family, etc. The view is divided into 3 sections: Detail, Pantry,

and Item Notes.

Detail Section

The Detail section gives you information about the item you se-

lected in the Supermarket : the priority, the shelf life, and so

The PantryView


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w Priority. Each item in the pantry is given one of 3 priori-

ties. This indicates the priority in which you should ac-

quire the item. You can only change an item's priority when

another priority level is being shown (checkmark on) inthe Supermarket (See the Supermarket menu). As you

change an item's priority, the shopping cart icon under

"Priority:" will change color.

Determining an item's priority is subjective. While the built-

in Supermarket list is already prioritized, you may opt to

change a number of items to suit your own needs andwants. One woman from Georgia chided us for not mak-

ing "Chocolate" a Survival item! In any event, the three

levels are as follows:

Survival. These items are a must in order to stay alive

and function well.

Standard. Add these items to survival to give you a morebalanced and varied diet.

Luxury. Include items that will make life more comfort-

able during a crisis.

Many of the items we have in the Supermarket are prob-

ably already on your shelf or in your garage. This is a good

tool to inventory non-food items that you already have,such as sleeping bags or anti-freeze. See page 25 for more

information on Priority.

w Nutrition. Enter your own coding system for nutritional

value of the item. This is not required but several custom-

ers requested this feature to supplement their plans. Some

wish to use the food pyramid (i.e., fats, meats, fruits, sug-

ars, etc.), while others enter "Protein", Carbohydrates","Fiber", etc. See the "Setup - Vendor, Nutrition, Loca-

tion" section on page 45 for information on adding to this

field.


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w Vendor. You can type in the name of your vendor for

that item. We have entered "Granary" and other generic

names to get you started, but you may wish to enter your

specific stores, such as "Krogers" or "Home Depot". Thisfeature is particularly valuable for the Shopping List re-

port. That way you can sort your Shopping List by Vendor

and buy all of the items at one time, saving you trips back

to the store. See the "Setup - Vendor, Nutrition, Loca-

tion" section on page 45 for more info.

wUnit Cost. Enter the Unit Cost from your vendor for eachitem you plan to buy. The pre-entered amounts in the Su-

permarket are estimates, as we could not possibly know

actual costs based upon where you live. Some items are

close enough (such as a spice jar) to trust. It is recom-

mended, however, that you take the time to review the

prices of the more costly items to insure a more accurate

Goal balance.w Recipe Conversion Factor. Enter the factor for convert-

ing this item into cups for the recipe book. This factor asks

the question: How many cups are in 1 unit of this item? In

the case of wheat: how many cups of flour are in 1 pound

of wheat? The item is "wheat", the unit is "LBS". We have

researched each of the food items most likely to be used

as ingredients in the Recipe Book, and entered a factorfor you (these factors will not show up if you did not con-

vert a 2.x or 3.x FSP file). In some cases we had to make

educated guesses, based upon conversions from culinary

schools in the USA. These factors only apply when using

the Recipe Book and menu planning. If you do not wish to

enter a factor, enter zero or leave it blank. Keep in mind,

that everything must be converted to a dry or wet CUPunless it is a whole unit item. An example of a whole unititem is when a recipe calls for "1 egg" or "1 can" ratherthan a "cup of eggs" or a "cup of cream of chicken soup".If you need something converted, we may be able to helpout, so just send us an email ([email protected]).


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w Location. Enter your own coding system for location of

your storage. This is not required but numerous custom-

ers requested this feature to help rotation. Some wish to

enter color codes that match color stickers on shelves orboxes, while others enter a geographical dimension such

as "west wall, shelf 3," and so forth. If you print a rotation

or pantry report and place it in your storage room, an item's

Location is readily found simply by referring to the report.

See the "Setup - Vendor, Nutrition, Location" section

for information on adding to this field.

w Shelf Life. A shelf life may be entered for each item. If

you enter your purchases and don't enter an expiration

date, the Shelf life value will set the expiration date of your

purchases based upon the purchase date. For example, if

an item has a 10 year shelf life and I buy some on Janu-

ary 1, 1999, the expiration date will automatically calcu-

late to January 2009. This is the default, but you can alsooverride it by simply typing in an expiration date for a pur-

chase. If you enter "N/A" (Not Applicable) in the Shelf life

field, the expiration date in the Purchase Detail window

will be disabled.

Note: You are limited to Months and Years in entering a

shelf life, and when typing a shelf life, just type in the "M"

or "Y" letter and tab out of the field. FSP fills in the rest ofthe word. For example, Corn Meal's shelf life is "2 years."

If we were typing that in, we would only need to type "2 y"

and then press the tab key.

Pantry Section

The Pantry section applies the items' information in the Detailsection above to your family and lets you record purchases for

inventory and usage for rotation. Most of your work in the Pantry

File is done in this section.


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w Store Sentence. The top line reads like a sentence ad-

vising you to: "Store 250 (Qty) LBS per Year for Each

Person by Factor." The Total Required is given in a box

above the purchase table. We have carefully reviewed

each item built-in the Supermarket, but here you can alter

food requirements for your particular family. In the ex-

ample, you may choose to lower the amount of Wheat for

each person from 250 lbs to 200 lbs, or opt to change

another variable in the Store Sentence.

w Per X Drop Down List. This is a time factor based upon

the nature of the Item's Qty. In our example, we need 250

lbs. of Wheat "per Year." This doesn't mean you have to

have a storage goal of 1 year. It just means that, for this

Wheat, an adult would normally consume 250 lbs. in a

year's time. If you want to store food for 6 months, for just

one adult, the Total Required would show 125 lbs. Oneoption in the drop down is "Goal Period." Use this for items

that have no real time variable. For example, you may wish

to buy a radio for each person in your family. If your stor-

age is for 3 years, you don't need to store one radio per

yearper person. That would give you 3 radios per person.


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If you select "Goal Period" it doesn't matter how long your

storage goal is, a fixed Qty. will be stored.

wPantry Item Factors. Eachitem in the Pantry returns the

Total Required value based

upon the quantity, the dura-

tion, and the Item Factors.

There are many items that

would only be calculated for

specific individuals or familymembers in a sex/age

bracket. For example, if we

were storing deodorant, we

would select "Each Person

over 12" as shown on the

next page, because we would

not need to buy deodorant for a young child. Other ex-amples are feminine hygiene, diapers and baby food,

children's pain killer, wine, and so forth. After you add your

family members, you can select an Item Factor for that

family member by selecting their name at the bottom of

the list. Also, "One per Person" indicates that no factors

are considered.

w Purchase Table.This table records your

purchases of the item.

To add a purchase,

click on the Purchase

button (you can also

type ALT + P) . This

opens the PurchaseDetail window, shown

here at the right. Enter

the Quantity pur-

chased of the item plus

the purchase and expi-


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ration dates as well. The latter two default to the current

date and the expiration date calculated by the item's Shelf

Life (respectively). If you find that the expiration date field

is disabled or dimmed, this is because "N/A" (for Not Ap-plicable) has been entered in the Shelf life field. You may

also enter Purchase Notes for each purchase row. Click

OK when you're finished.

To edit or delete a row in the Purchase Table, first select

the row, and then press the Edit or Delete button. You

can also double-click a row to edit it. Until you select arow, these buttons remain disabled (dimmed).

w Percent Complete. As you add purchases, the Percent

Complete pie chart gives you a visual representation of

where you are with that particular item. The table is to-

taled at the bottom (Total Purchased) and the amount lack-

ing for that item is given.

Item Balance (Aisle Balance). This gives you an idea what

you will spend acquiring the rest of that item. If you select

an Aisle instead of an item, the amount will be what you

need to spend for all the items in that Aisle combined, and

the text will change to "Aisle Balance". The Percent Com-

plete will also reflect progress for the Aisle as a whole, as

a mathematical average.

Goal Balance. FSP is not an accounting program, thus it

will not keep track of how much you have already spent,

but does give you an idea of what you can expect to spend

for your goals. This is the same value listed in the Setup-

Goal window and is given here for continual reference.

It is imperative you record all your purchases faithfully if

FSP is to give you accurate Pantry, Shopping List, and

Rotation reports. It is a good idea to immediately enter

your purchases upon your return from the store. Besides

assuring an accurate count, immediate feedback from FSP

is rewarding and will increase your desire to be diligent in

makin our oal. Some of our users set aside their re-


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ceipts and enter them weekly or monthly. Whatever you

choose, be consistent and FSP will reward you with accu-

rate information.

w Recording Usage. If you take out or otherwise consume

items in your pantry, you will need to record the usage

faithfully,

so that

y o u r

S h o p -

ping Listcan be

updated

to re-

p l a c e

what you

have used. Your Pantry report will also show reduced in-

ventory. To record usage of an item, click on the item inthe Supermarket (such as Wheat), and press the Use but-

ton (you can also type ALT + U) . The Record Usage Dia-

log opens as shown above. Enter the amount in the cor-

rect Unit (which in the case of wheat is LBS) you have

consumed and click OK. The dialog will close and you will

notice the earliest expiration row in the Purchase Table is

reduced by the amount you enter.

IMPORTANT: FSP operates under the assumption that you will

use the oldest stock first. Most of the time this will be in the first

row, but it is possible that you might buy food that will expire

sooner than what you already have in your Pantry. Thus, you

would notice a reduction in a different row or rows.

Item Notes Section

Enter notes for this particular item such as vendor information,

such as directions, brand quality, or entering vendor decimal sales

comparison numbers. Notes entered here are saved with your

Pantry file in full, but only the first 50 characters appear in the


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Aisles

The Supermarket contains a

list of hundreds of items you

can choose to put in your Pan-try. Just as you walk down

aisles in your local store gath-

ering items off the shelf, FSP

has items stored in categories

called Aisles. The purpose of

an aisle is to group like items

so that you may adjust themwithin a category to suit your

preferencewithout sacrificing

something essential in your

diet. For example, if you do not

like barley, increase the amoun

of rice or some other grain and

reduce the barley so that youstill have X pounds of grains in

your diet.

Priority

In addition to grouping items

by aisle (category), items arealso grouped by Priority. See

the Priority explanation in the

Pantry View's Detail section

earlier in this guide. By de-

fault, only Survival level items

The PantryFile


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are shown when you open FSP for the first time. If you select

Show Standard or Show Luxury under the Supermarket

menu, you will see all the Aisles collapse suddenly. Upon

opening the aisles again, you will see other items added tothem with different colored shopping cart icons. The color

coding is as follows:

Survival = Red

Standard = Yellow

Luxury = Green

A checkmark appears next to the "Show Survival", "Show

Standard", and "Show Luxury" menu items to indicate it is

included in the Supermarket.

Sorting

Until another priority level is included (showing), all items aresorted alphabetically within their aisle. With other priority levels

showing, you can sort the items either alphabetically, or by prior-

ity and then alphabetically. To do so, select your preference from

the Sort menu while in the Pantry View window.

Navigation

You can use the mouse to navigate by double-clicking on an aisle

to open or close it, and by a single left click to select an item and

load it into the Pantry View. You can also use the Arrow keys to

navigate through the supermarket. While selecting an aisle, the

Right Arrow key expands the aisle, while the Left Arrow key

collapses it.

The Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys scroll and select up anddown through the items. If you have selected an item and press

the Left Arrow key, you will immediately move to that item's aisle.

To move an item from one aisle to another, drag it with the mouse

and drop it over the aisle icon of the aisle you want to put it in. If


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the destination aisle is collapsed, it will open when you drop the

item on it, showing you where it was put.

Add/Delete Items and Aisles

You can add or delete items or aisles in the Supermarket. Once

you delete them, however, the only way to get them back is to re-

enter them manually. There is no "undo" feature. Each time you

create a new Pantry File, however, a complete, unedited Super-

market list is added to that file. If you delete an aisle that has

items in it, this will not delete the items themselves, but move theitems to the aisle level at the bottom of the Supermarket. If an

aisle has no items in it, it will still show up in the Supermarket, but

if you check off a priority status an aisle can disappear if all the

items in that aisle are of the same status you just checked off.

For example, if I have an aisle called "Parties" and it is empty, the

aisle will always show up, even if all priorities are checked off.

But if I add an item to the Parties aisle called "Caviar" and selectit as a luxury item, both the Parties aisle and the Caviar item will

disappear once "Show Luxury" is checked off.

All commands for adding or deleting of items and aisles are lo-

cated under the Supermarket menu.

To Add an Item

1. Select "New Item" near the bottom of the Supermarket

menu. This will add an "Untitled Item" to the bottom of the super-

market (scroll to the bottom to see it).

2. Type in the name of your new item (replace "Untitled Item")

and press the enter key. You may need to click on it to select

it again.

You will see it load into the right section of the screen, which is

the Pantry View. In the Pantry View you specify properties of the

item just added as we noted on prior pages.


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3. Using the mouse, drag the item to the desired aisle and

drop it in.

The item will move to that aisle and the aisle will expand to showyou your new item in its sorted place. You also need to specify its

Priority, Shelf Life, Unit Cost, and so forth.

Find (Find Next, Find All)

The Find command under the Edit menu lets you search for any

item or items that

match your criteria

within the Priority

levels that are vis-

ible (or checked on).

In the example be-

low, I want to find

"maple syrup" so I

enter maple and

press the Find but-

ton. FSP then takes me to the first instance it finds of the word

"maple," which happens to be "Extract, maple" under the Spice

Aisle. You will notice that it not only opens the aisle, but also

selects the item.

If I then select the Find Next menu item,I am then taken to the "Maple syrup"

item under the Sugar Aisle. If you check

the "Results in Supermarket List"

checkbox, then FSP displays in the Su-

permarket only those records it has

found, as seen at the right. To restore the Supermarket, select

Find All under the Edit menu and the rest of the aisles and itemswill show up. What applies to the Supermarket with respect to

the Find commands, also applies to the Recipes described later.

Search by the following criteria:

w Field. Specify specific fields only, or any field.


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w Match. Search by any text at any part or the start of afield.

w Search. You can search up or down the Supermarket or

Recipe list.

Usefulness of Find

w Search instead of scrolling to find your items to enter pur-chases.

w Search for duplicates to streamline your food storage

record keeping.w Search for a group, such as all items in the Grain folder,

and then print a shopping list of only the grains.

Icon Bar

The Icon Bar features shortcuts to open a report or perform a

function. The icons are (from left to right) as follows:

w Open Pantry File Reports: Summary

Report, Shopping List, Pantry List,

Rotation Report

w Help. Access

online web

support.

w File Operations: New, Open, Save, Export (Exports the ac-

tive report), Cut, Copy, Paste, Print, Print Preview, Page

Setup, and Find

w Open Recipe Book File Re-ports: Menu Plan, Ingredi-

ent Summary.


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The Pantry File features four reports, each of which you can

view on screen. These reports are accessed under the View menu

or by pressing their icons in the icon bar, and once opened they

can be selected under the Window menu or, again, by pressingtheir icons in the icon bar.

Report Features

w You can tile or cascade the reports.

w Each report can be printed and exported (as a tab-delimited

text file). If you drag a column width to nothing, the report willprint without that column.

w Drag and drop columns in any order for printing.

w Each report displays only those items in the Supermarket, so

if you have a found set of items done in a search (find), only

those items show up in the report.

w The reports are dynamic. Anytime you change a value in the

Pantry View, it is instantly updated in the applicable reports,

whether they are opened or not.

wMost of the reports can be sorted multiple ways. The Sort menu

has pre-built sort menu items. In addition, you can double-click a

column to sort by that column and build very complex sorts. You

cannot sort the Rotation report.

w You can double-click on any item (row) in any report and FSP

will take you to the Pantry View and display that item.

w You can have any or all of the 4 reports open for each Pantry

File you are working on. This is a very powerful feature, but can

PantryReports


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also create confusion. If you have a file open for each of your 5

married children and you are calculating storage for them, you

could have all 4 reports open. That would result in 20 reports

open.

A checkmark next to the report's name in the View menu indi-

cates it is open. Whether or not it is visibleis another thing. Go to

the Window menu to select it by name or click its icon to bring a

report forward.

Summary Report

The Summary report is a comprehensive list of everything in the

Supermarket. It lists items for which you have inventory as well

as "zero inventory" items. This report has a column for every field

in FSP.

Shopping List

IMPORTANT: Please read this carefully.

This report lists everything you have left to buy. Until you reach

100% quantity of an item, it will show up on the Shopping List.

This report is a realistic way of shopping for your food storage.Since availability of items and prices change over time, it would

be difficult to set a budget you could adhere to over the course of

your Goal Date. We could take, say, a 50 lb. requirement for rice

and divide it by the number of months your goal date sets, but if

your goal date is in the distant future, such a plan would be im-

practical. Nobody buys 4.16667 lbs. of rice per month for 12

months to get 50 lbs.

Furthermore, we may opt to shop for one food item and find that

another item on the Shopping List is on sale at a given store. Or

still, we might decide to make a 200 mile drive to a granary and

choose to buy all remaining items in the Grain aisle.


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The point is, when we go out shopping, the only thing we know

for sure is how much money we can spend at that moment. Thus,

the Shopping List is designed to that end. Simply enter the thresh-

old amount of items you can afford to spend on that day and FSPreturns a list of all items for that amount or less. The default is

$100.00 USD. From there just sort the columns to suit your plan

for that shopping excursion.

You may also check the box "Show Everything Lacking" which

displays everything you need regardless of price.

The Shopping List is sub-totaled by Aisle.

Pantry List

The Pantry List is the converse of the Shopping List. It shows

you everything you have in your Pantry. In other words, it lists all

items with a Total Purchase quantity greater than zero. In effect,this is your inventory list. You may wish to print this list and post

it next to your food storage in the basement, or kitchen for a quick

place to jot down consumption of food. That way you can sit down

at your computer and enter all your usage conveniently.

Rotation ReportThe Rotation report displays those items that will expire within

the number of months you set. For example, if you want to see all

the items that expire in the next 90 days, enter "3" in the field (for

3 months). This report only sorts by Expiration date. If you print

this report and have it in your food storage, you will be able to

avoid throwing away food you forgot to rotate in addition to keep-ing your stock always fresh.


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The Recipe Book File (.fsr) consists of the Chapters, the Recipe

View, and two reports: Menu Plan and Ingredient Summary.

Subsequent chapters will explain the usage of each of these, butthe navigation of the pages are shown here:

Chapters

Menu Plan & IngredientSummary ReportsMenu BarFile Operations

The RecipeBook File

Ingredients

InstructionsRecipes

Recipe View


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The Chapters

A Recipe File (.fsr) is

called a "Recipe Book."

You can create many

Recipe Books and have

more than one book open,

but your FSP Pantry Files

will l ink to only oneopened (Foremost). As

you might find in a published recipe book at a bookstore, an FSP

Recipe Book consists of Chapters, such as Breads, Salads, Des-

serts, and so forth. These Chapters contain Recipes. You can

add and delete chapters, and add and delete Recipes in those

chapters. The operation of the Recipe File is very similar to the

Supermarket and Pantry views.

Opening a Recipe Book File

To open the Recipe Book file we ship with FSP, go the File menu

and select Open. A dialog window will open. At the bottom of the

dialog you will see a drop down menu called "Files of type:" and

it will default to "FSP Files (*.fsp)". Select "FSR Files (*.fsr)" from

this drop down and you will see the Recipes book file appear inthe open area above. Click on it and press the Open button.

After opening a recipe book file, FSP will automatically open the

last recipe book file used when you launch the program.

The RecipeChapters


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Navigation

You can use the mouse to navigate by double-clicking on a Chap-

ter to open or close it, and by a single left click to select a recipeand load it into the Recipe View. You can also use the Arrow

keys to navigate through the Chapters. While selecting a Chap-

ter, the Right Arrow key expands the Chapter, while the Left

Arrow key collapses it.

The Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys scroll and select up and

down through the Recipes. If you have selected a Recipe and

press the Left Arrow key, you will immediately move to that

Recipe's Chapter.

To move a Recipe from one Chapter to another, drag it with the

mouse and drop it over the Chapter icon of the Chapter you want

to put it in. If the destination Chapter is collapsed, it will open

when you drop the Recipe on it, showing you where it was put.

Add/Delete Recipes and Chapters

You can add or delete Recipes or Chapters in the Recipe Book

by selecting the appropriate menu item under the Recipes menu.

Once you delete them, however, the only way to get them back is

to re-enter them manually. There is no "undo" feature.

All commands for adding or deleting of Recipes or Chapters arelocated under the Recipes menu.


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The Recipe

The Recipe View is the main work area in the Recipe Book File.

It sits to the right of the Chapter list As you click on items in theChapter list, they load into the Recipe View where you can see

the detail for each item such as the Ingredients and Instructions.

The view is divided into 3 sections: Detail, Ingredients, and In-

structions.

As you click on a recipe icon in the book, the recipe loads to the

right in the Recipe View. The view is divided into 3 sections:

Detail, Ingredients, and Instructions.

Detail Section

The Detail section gives you information about the item you se-

lected in the Recipe Book: the Chapter, adjusting the recipesand how many times you plan to prepare it each month.

w The Chapter. You can change the Chapter of an item by se-

lecting a new Chapter name in the drop down list. You can also

drag and drop Recipes from one Chapter to another.

w Adjustment. Only you know how much your family or group will

eat. Each Recipe defaults to its original form, but you can select

whether or not you will need to double the recipe or halve it, and

The RecipeView


37/45


so forth. Whether you "Prepare As Is" or adjust the recipe up or

down, FSP will appropriately calculate and adjust ingredients in

your Ingredient Summary. For example, if you always triple a given

Recipe, FSP will triple the necessary ingredients required to pre-pare the Recipe for the rate you entered per month. This adjust-

ment will not change the recipe itself. You will need to 3X each

ingredient yourself when you make it. It only changes the Ingre-

dient Summary.

w Rate of Preparation. Enter the number of times you wish to

prepare this recipe per month. Any number greater than ".1" willinclude said Recipe on the Menu Plan report.

Ingredients Section

The Ingredients section lets you add, edit, and delete ingredients

for a particular recipe. The arrows at the bottom will move the

selected ingredient up or down in the list, permitting you to cus-

tomize the order of the items. These arrows are dimmed, as shown

below to the right, if no ingredient row is selected.

At the left of the item name

you will see either a green

checkmark, a yellow ques-

tion mark, or a red "X".

These icons indicate alinked status with the food

item in your Supermarket

as follows:

w Green checkmark. This

tells you that you

have storage of the ingre-

dient in one or more open

Pantry Files.

w Yellow question mark.

This tells you FSP doesn't


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know what the ingredient is.

w Red "X" tells you that FSP knows what the ingredient links to

in the Pantry File (or Supermarket), but that you haven't put anyin your storage yet.

These icons automatically update as you buy and consume in-

gredients from your pantry. As you increasingly use a menu plan

of your family's favorite recipes, and cook them on a regular ba-

sis, a personal tragedy is easily endurable. Also, having linked

items permits you to have a "menu driven" food storage. That is,

you will buy those items based upon the recipes your family likes

to eat.

w Adding an Ingredient. Most of the ingredients for our built-in

recipes are pre-shipped with a link made to the built-in Super-

market list. There are two ways to add an ingredient:

1. Drag from the Supermarket. Select Tile under the Window

menu to tile the Supermarket and Recipe windows (both files must

be open, of course) so you can see them both. Then select the

Supermarket item's icon, such as "Brown Sugar" and drag it with

the mouse over to the blank row area below the last ingredient in

the Recipe view. Using the example above, we would drag the

"Brown Sugar" icon to the empty space beneath the "Salt, io-

dized" row in the selected recipe. As you let go of the mouse, the

new ingredient is added to the list. At this point you need to open

the Ingredient Detail window to specify the amount needed of

the item for the selected

recipe. The Ingredient Detail

window is explained below.

2. Manually add an ingredient

by pressing the Add button inthis Section. Doing so will

bring up the Ingredient Detail

window as shown on the fol-

lowing here:


39/45


Type in the name of the ingredient and the amount needed to

prepare the recipe. If you wish to link the ingredient to an item in

the Pantry File, close the Ingredient Detail window and repeat

the steps in option #1 above "Drag from the Supermarket", ex-cept instead of "dropping" the item icon in the blank area of the

ingredients table, drop the icon over this ingredient you just added.

Upon doing so, you will see the icon in the ingredient table change

from a "?" to an "X" or "" depending on whether you have stor-

age or not. These two items are now linked. It doesn't matter if

you rename the ingredient, just make certain you have a similarname to the Supermarket's item name so you don't become con-

fused.

w Ingredient Detail window. You can type in whatever name you

wish for the ingredient. Linking it to an item in the Supermarket is

completely independent, but if you are not careful, you may get

into trouble by confusing names and, thus, ingredients.

IMPORTANT: The amount for an ingredient should be entered

in fractions like "1/2" as in "1/2 cup", not in decimals like ".5

cup". FSP will convert the fractions cor-

rectly.

Select from the Measurement drop down the

appropriate measurement. You cannot manu-

ally enter your own since FSP must use a pre-built list from which to calculate the Ingredient

Summary report. You should make every ef-

fort to convert your recipes to one of the mea-

surements in the drop down list (A metric ver-

sion will be available to non-USA or non-Im-

perial systems in 2002. Until then, you will

need to convert from grams where applicable).At the top of the list is a blank row. In the ex-

ample to the right we have selected it so it is

navy blue in color. This selection tells FSP that

the ingredient is a whole unit item as described on page 19 in theRecipe Factor field. For example, if your recipe calls for 3 eggs,


40/45


you would enter "3" in the amount field and then select this emptyrow to indicate that it is "3 items". Other examples may include"Cans" or "Packets" and so forth.

What is happening here? FSP converts all ingredient measure-ments into one common denominator: a cup. Then it goes andcalculates how much is needed for all ingredients and their linkeditems based upon the Recipe Factor in the Pantry Files. This iswhy all applicable food items are converted to a cup in the Pantry

View.

Press the Remove Link button to break the ingredients link toopen Pantry Files.

Instructions Section

Enter the instructions for preparing the Recipe and any Serving

Information you would like to see on the Menu Plan Report.


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The Recipe File features four reports, each of which you can

view on screen. These reports are accessed under the View menu

or by pressing their icons in the icon bar, and once opened they

can be selected under the Window menu or, again, by pressingtheir icons in the icon bar.

Report Features

w You can tile or cascade the reports.

w Both reports can be printed and exported (as a tab-delimited

text file). If you drag a column width to nothing, the report willprint without that column.

w Drag and drop columns in any order for printing.

w Each report displays only those items in the Recipe File, so if

you have a found set of items done in a search, only those items

show up in the report.

w Both reports are dynamic. Anytime you change a value in the

Recipe View, it is instantly updated in the applicable reports,

whether they are opened or not.

w Both reports can be sorted multiple ways. The Sort menu has

pre-built sort menu items. In addition, you can double-click a col-

umn to sort by that column and build very complex sorts.

w You can double-click on a row in the Menu Plan report and

FSP will take you to the Recipe View and display that Recipe.

w You can have both reports open for each document you are

working on. This is a very powerful feature, but can also create

confusion. If you have 4 Recipe Book Files open, you could have

RecipeReports


42/45


Menu Plan Report

IMPORTANT: Please read this carefully.

The Menu Plan report is a list of all the Recipes you have se-

lected to prepare more than once. It defaults to the number of

months in your Goal Period specified by your Setup window in

your Pantry File. If you have more than one Pantry File open, it

takes the average months of all open files.

Studies show that most people eat between 20-30 different dishesin a month's time. Since no one plans to prepare a certain recipe

on the third Tuesday four months in the future (unless it is a

special occasion), for our purposes, we don't use a calendar to

menu plan. Rather, our users have asked for a linear list to view

the Recipes they are going to prepare at a given RATE per month.

Thus, the Menu Plan report. If you want to prepare a dessert

only 12 times per year, enter "1" on your Rate of Preparationfield on the Recipe View. If you want to prepare something only 6

times per year, enter ".5". FSP uses the Menu Plan to calculate

the necessary ingredients for the Ingredient Summary Report.

Ingredient Summary

This report lists everything you will need to buy for all the Reci-

pes listed in the Menu Plan. FSP not only retrieves the neces-

sary ingredients and their quantities, it also accesses your open

Pantry Files and retrieves the inventory for each of those items.

Thus, the Ingredient Summary can be used as a shopping list of

sorts.

Why isn't this report linked to the Shopping List? First, the RecipeBook File is a separate file than the Pantry File and so there is

no direct linking. Second, you may wish to use this report to see

what your menu plan needs are, and then use the Pantry View to

purchase more than what your Menu Plan specifies. This helps

insure you have enough and a little extra in case of spoilage or


43/45


other loss. Keep in mind, that in a very difficult time, your neigh-

bor may also need some food and you may wish to purchase

extra for friends and family. Thus, the Pantry Files' Shopping List

and the Ingredient Summary report should be used simultaneously

and should complement each other to result in an abundant in-

ventory.


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Saving your Files

You should save your FSP document before you get too far intoit, so as to diminish the risk of losing data. To do so, select Save...

from the File menu. The following dialog opens:

Enter the file name and press the Save button.Note: Your Pantry file is called a "fsp" file, whereas a Recipe Book

File is called a "fsr" file. When opening one of these files, make

sure the "Save as type:" drop down is selected to the file type

you want (.fsp or .fsr) or you will not be able to see the document

(file) you are looking for.

Miscellany


45/45


Setup - Vendor, Nutrition, Location

FSP has three customizable lists: Vendor, Nutrition, and Loca-

tion. Each of these lists operate identically, so if you can under-

stand how one works, the other two will be a cinch. In this ex-

ample below, we explain the Vendor list.

If you select the Vendor's shopping cart icon in the Setup win-

dow, the Vendor Summary appears and you have the option of

changing the Vendors' names in one step, rather than changing

each vendor name item by item. Select a vendor name and pressthe Edit button to edit the name.

You do not add Vendors in this window. To add a vendor, type

their name directly in the Vendor field/list of the Detail Section

while in the Pantry View.

After you type the Vendor's name in once, it will become part ofthe drop down list and you may select it in the future for otheritems in your Pantry. If you select a Vendor and press Delete, all

items that had that vendor will have a blank Vendor field.

food storage planner guide

Documents