Help

Bringing your menu in

Start from the menu you already have. You can bring it in five ways:

• Take photos (phone browsers): one page per photo. After each shot you see the page and can take another.
• Photos: pick photos you already took. iPhone photos (HEIC) work too.
• File: a PDF or an image. Each page of a PDF is read on its own. Password-protected PDFs can’t be read.
• Spreadsheet: CSV, XLSX or XLS, with your items in rows.
• Paste text: copy your menu from a document or website and paste it.

On a computer you can also drop files on the page. Nothing leaves your browser until you tap Read menu, and location data is removed from photos first.

Photographing a menu

• Lay the page flat in even light, away from glare on laminated sheets.
• Fill the frame with one page, and keep the whole page in view.
• Take one photo per page, in the order guests read them. You can reorder pages before Read menu.

If a page can’t be read

You can retake it, replace it with another photo or file, or skip it. If nothing could be read, try again, bring the menu in another way, or paste the text. Retries add to the same menu, so they never use up another menu slot.

Checking your list

Every page you bring in becomes one list of categories, items, descriptions, prices and options. Nothing is drawn and nothing goes online before you check it.

• Items with no price, a price that couldn’t be read, or a possible duplicate come first.
• Edit names, prices, sizes and add-ons, move items between categories, and reorder with drag or the keyboard.
• Marks such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and spice level are your own statements: they come only from your menu or from you.
• A menu holds up to 150 items.

Your edits save as you make them. You need a connection to edit.

Choosing a look: drawn pages or a web menu

Once your list is checked, choose how guests see it. You can make both.

• Drawn pages: new pages drawn by AI from your list, in one of six styles or the look of a menu you like.
• A web menu: your list as text in a theme. It fits any screen, can be read aloud, and prints on US Letter.

Using a menu you like as a reference

Upload a photo or file of a menu whose look you want. You must have the right to use that design as a reference; you confirm this before anything is drawn. Images that aren’t a menu or a design can’t be used.

The page plan and page 1

Before anything is drawn, the page plan shows how many pages your menu needs, which categories fall on each page, and what it costs. Categories are placed in list order, and a long category continues on the next page.

Page 1 is drawn first and sets the look for every page. You see it large and choose: draw the rest, redraw page 1, or change the style. Every later page is drawn from page 1, so the pages match.

If drawing fails

A page that fails keeps its credit for Try again. If a whole draw fails, Try again uses the credits already set aside; if you leave or change the style instead, the credits come back. A live menu keeps showing its current pages until new ones are ready.

Page credits and free pages

• Without a plan you get 3 drawn pages for free, with a small “Made with MenuPress” mark. A page that fails uses nothing.
• On a plan, one page credit draws one page: a new page, a redraw, or a page redrawn when you Apply a change.
• You always see the cost before you tap, for example “Uses 4 page credits (36 left)”.
• Making themes for your place uses 2 page credits on a plan; without a plan you can do it 3 times. Built-in themes, changes to a theme, and updates to a web menu use no credits.
• Reading your menu never uses credits.

See Pricing for the credits each plan includes.

Apply: updating a live menu

When a price or a dish changes, edit your list and tap Apply. You see what changes and what it costs first.

• On a web menu, the change goes live right away and uses no credits.
• On drawn pages, only the pages showing a changed item, heading or detail are redrawn. Guests keep seeing the current pages until the new ones are ready, then all of them switch at once.
• The link and the QR stay the same.

Apply needs an active plan.

Your link and QR code

When you publish, your menu gets a link made from its name, such as menupress.app/harbor-cafe, and a QR code you can download as an image for tables, windows and flyers. Publishing needs a plan and a signed-in account.

• The link stays with your menu. Renaming the menu doesn’t change it, and it is never given to another restaurant.
• You choose what guests see: the drawn pages, the web menu, or both.
• Guest pages set no cookies and run no analytics.

If your plan ends

Your live menus go offline, and guests see that the menu isn’t available. Nothing is deleted: your menus, lists and pages stay in your library and you can keep editing. Renew and the same link and QR work again. Plans start at $9.99 a month.

Reports and removal

Anyone can report a published menu with the “Report this menu” link at the bottom of its page. We review reports. A menu found to break our terms may be removed; guests then see that it isn’t available, and only support can restore it.

You can report a drawn page that came out wrong from the page itself.

Web menus and themes

A theme sets everything visual about a web menu: colors, fonts, headings, how items and prices sit. Any theme works with any list.

• Pick a built-in theme and your web menu appears with your own items right away.
• Or make themes for your place: describe it and add your menu, a logo or a photo of the room, and get 3 themes to choose from.
• Adjust a theme with controls, or change it in words, such as “warmer colors, bigger prices”. Undo goes back a step.
• Themes belong to your account, so you can use one on all your menus.
• Print your web menu, or save it as a PDF, from the browser’s print dialog.