Rescue your Living Cookbook recipes
Living Cookbook was discontinued in 2015. If your recipes are still sitting in it, now is the time to get them out. Export to .fdx and upload it here — we'll convert everything to formats that last.
100% free. No account required.
About Living Cookbook
Living Cookbook was a Windows recipe manager made by Radium Technologies. For a long time it was one of the better-featured desktop recipe apps — full cookbook organization, nutritional analysis, meal planning, and a clean print layout. It built up a loyal following.
Radium Technologies closed around 2015 and development stopped. The software still runs on machines where it was already installed, but it won't be updated for new Windows versions and there's no path forward inside the app. If your recipes are in Living Cookbook, the only way to keep them is to get them out now.
How to export from Living Cookbook
The .fdx export is the most complete option — it carries ingredients, instructions, times, categories, and notes.
Open Living Cookbook
Launch the application on your Windows machine. If it no longer opens on your current system, try a Windows virtual machine or an older PC where it was previously installed.
File → Export
From the menu bar, choose File → Export. You'll see a list of export format options.
Choose Food Data Exchange (.fdx)
Select Food Data Exchange (.fdx) as the export format. This is the XML-based format that preserves your full recipe data — including ingredient quantities, step instructions, cook times, and categories.
Select your cookbooks
Choose which cookbooks or individual recipes to include. For a complete backup, export everything at once.
Save and upload
Save the .fdx file somewhere you can find it, then drag it into the upload area above. We'll extract every recipe and convert the lot.
Supported formats
Food Data Exchange — Living Cookbook's XML export. Carries the full cookbook and chapter structure, plus all recipe fields: ingredients with quantity and unit, step-by-step instructions, prep and cook times, yield, categories, author, and source URL.
The same .fdx file gzip-compressed. Some versions of Living Cookbook export this by default. Upload it directly — we'll decompress and parse it automatically.
.lcb is Living Cookbook's proprietary database file. We can't read it directly. Open it in Living Cookbook and export to .fdx first. If the app won't run on your current system, a Windows virtual machine is the most reliable path.
Why act now
Living Cookbook stopped being maintained a decade ago. The longer you wait, the harder the exit becomes.
Windows updates will eventually break it
Software that isn't maintained stops working as the operating system underneath it changes. At some point Living Cookbook will stop opening — and so will your recipes.
No support if something goes wrong
Radium Technologies is gone. If Living Cookbook corrupts a file or won't export, there's no one to call. A copy in open formats is your safety net.
Recipes you can't share
Sending a recipe means the other person needs Living Cookbook too — a decade-old application they'd have to find and install. Convert to PDF and share with anyone.
Locked out of modern apps
Today's recipe apps don't read .fdx files. Convert to JSON and import into Mealie, Tandoor, Paprika, or any other app you want to use going forward.
Export to any format
Get your recipes in formats that work for you
Schema.org compliant
Print-ready cards
Excel-friendly
Plain text
For developers
Portable database
YAML format
Get your recipes out while you still can
Export your .fdx file from Living Cookbook and upload it above. We'll convert every recipe into the format you need — PDF, JSON, CSV, Markdown, or all of them at once.