Duplicate (Multiple?) cover problem

[SampleAndy]

So far, I've worked on 5 different documents, two that I converted from PDFs and three where I split an omnibus into its individual books. Since the only thing I do in calibre is say convert EPUB to MOBI, I'm pretty sure my problem is somewhere in Sigil.
...
But then again... View Specific Format in calibre has just shown me that the EPUB has one cover, but the MOBI has two. But I'm not doing anything trick in the conversion; I'm not smart enough.

There has to be something in the document that tells calibre to process it differently. Could somebody tell me where I should start to look for it?

In case it's significant, the documents which came out with only one cover were the PDF files. To change the covers from the omnibus, I renamed the correct jpg to cover.jpg and edited cover.xhtml to reflect the change in size.

(sigh) Thanks.

[st_albert]

Did you remember to remove the (x)html cover page (NOT the cover image) from the epub before you converted it to mobi?

You must also be sure that the cover image semantics are set for "cover image" and adjust the OPF file's <guide> item "cover" to point to the cover image (rather than the html cover page).

HTH

[SampleAndy]

Originally Posted by st_albert

Did you remember to remove the (x)html cover page (NOT the cover image) from the epub before you converted it to mobi?

You must also be sure that the cover image semantics are set for "cover image" and adjust the OPF file's <guide> item "cover" to point to the cover image (rather than the html cover page).

HTH

I'm pretty sure I didn't remember anything, because I just jumped in and started fumbling around without KNOWing anything. Both of the former PDF files have the same file that refers to the cover image, (cover.xhtml in one case, titlepage.xhtml in the other) but they are fine.

The guide sections are listed below:
working:
<reference href="Text/Cover.xhtml" title="Cover" type="cover"/>
<reference href="Text/titlepage.xhtml" title="Cover" type="cover"/>
not working:
<guide/>
no guide section at all
no guide section at all at all

I'm thinking that might have been caused by this:
<!-- Your OPF file was broken so Sigil was forced to create a new one from scratch. -->
I'd tried to delete the section about:
<dc:identifier id="BookId" opf:scheme="UUID">urn:uuid:71f45e9f-e287-4e23-b041-60cc6a00dc20</dc:identifier>
hoping that Sigil might recreate it, and instead it recreated the entire file.

[DiapDealer]

I'd tried to delete the section about:
<dc:identifier id="BookId" opf:scheme="UUID">urn:uuid:71f45e9f-e287-4e23-b041-60cc6a00dc20</dc:identifier>
hoping that Sigil might recreate it, and instead it recreated the entire file.

Yeah, deleting the unique ID is one of the quickest ways to a borked OPF.

[SampleAndy]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Yeah, deleting the unique ID is one of the quickest ways to a borked OPF.

You betcha! That was one of the fastest things I'd ever done, although it took me a while to realize I'd done it.

To derail my own thread, what is the correct way to get a unique ID?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by SampleAndy

To derail my own thread, what is the correct way to get a unique ID?

Was there something wrong with the one you had?

Seriously, though.... if it's just for your own use. You don't really need an ID that is unique in all the universe. There is no registry for them and no readers really utilize them that I'm aware of.

They can be just about anything though. Many people use some variation on their name/date/time/revision (without a scheme):

<dc:identifier id="BookId">diapdealer-02202014-rev3</dc:identifier>

[SampleAndy]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Was there something wrong with the one you had?

Seriously, though.... if it's just for your own use. You don't really need an ID that is unique in all the universe. There is no registry for them and no readers really utilize them that I'm aware of.

They can be just about anything though. Many people use some variation on their name/date/time/revision (without a scheme):

<dc:identifier id="BookId">diapdealer-02202014-rev3</dc:identifier>

The problem was that I split an omnibus into three different books. You can't have three books with the same ID. I mean you CAN, but it does weird things. If I remember correctly, calibre was perfectly happy with them, but I could only send one of the three to the Kindle. Sending another one would replace the one that was already there.

Back on thread, I'm trying to edit the file per st_albert's suggestion.

[SampleAndy]

Originally Posted by st_albert

Did you remember to remove the (x)html cover page (NOT the cover image) from the epub before you converted it to mobi?

You must also be sure that the cover image semantics are set for "cover image" and adjust the OPF file's <guide> item "cover" to point to the cover image (rather than the html cover page).

HTH

Well, I deleted cover.xhtml and edited the content.opf to change the empty guide section to:
<reference href="Images/cover.jpg" title="Cover" type="cover"/>

Now calibre shows the title page instead of a cover, and the MOBI file shows two title pages.

I'm thinking that's not what I want.

Maybe it's time to try to read the... f@#$@n' manual... again.

[SampleAndy]

Originally Posted by st_albert

Did you remember to remove the (x)html cover page (NOT the cover image) from the epub before you converted it to mobi?

You must also be sure that the cover image semantics are set for "cover image" and adjust the OPF file's <guide> item "cover" to point to the cover image (rather than the html cover page).

HTH

(my bold added)

If you select the desired file (in my case, cover.xhtml) and RightClick it, you get a menu. From there, you can select Add Semantics and choose Cover. It looks like that might have taken care of it. The two PDFs which were only showing one cover had that menu option selected already.

I'm sure there are other things I've screwed up, but I think I'm making progress.

Thanks guys!!!

[theducks]

If you use Tools: add cover: (select image from those in Images).
All the work semantic setting is done for you.

If you use Calibre's new editor, there is a tool to generate a new UUID

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by SampleAndy

(my bold added)

If you select the desired file (in my case, cover.xhtml) and RightClick it, you get a menu. From there, you can select Add Semantics and choose Cover. It looks like that might have taken care of it. The two PDFs which were only showing one cover had that menu option selected already.

I'm sure there are other things I've screwed up, but I think I'm making progress.

Thanks guys!!!

OK, what I was talking about was the case where you are preparing an epub for conversion to mobi format. In that case, you want to delete the cover.xhtml file entirely, and go to the "Images" directory and mark the cover image itself with the semantic "cover". Then change the guide entry for "cover" to something like:

<reference href="Images/cover-image.jpg" title="Cover" type="cover" />

and also be sure that within the <metadata> section of content.opf there is a line like:

<meta content="cover-image.jpg" name="cover" />

where of course you should replace "cover-image.jpg" with whatever the real filename of your cover image file is.

You should save this epub file with a separate filename, since it is no longer, strictly speaking, a valid epub. Use this file to convert to mobi.

And BTW I would recommend you use "kindlegen" rather than calibre to do the conversion, especially if you plan to distribute the kindle version to others. If you're on Windows, install the Kindle previewer, and it will handle the conversion from epub for you. Details are left as an exercise for the student.

[st_albert]

deleted -- duplicate post

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by theducks

If you use Calibre's new editor, there is a tool to generate a new UUID

Is that still in beta or something? I looked and looked (calibre 1.25) and can't find it anywhere.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Is that still in beta or something? I looked and looked (calibre 1.25) and can't find it anywhere.

I can't find it now It was just in last weeks that I did found/used it
I don't run from source (and there has not been a recent beta). I think it was on the tools menu (where it should be as it applies to the Book)

I did just find a cosmetic bug in1.25.
Preferences (ctrl-P) is on BOTH the edit menu and the Help Menu

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by theducks

I can't find it now It was just in last weeks that I did found/used it

Well, that does make me feel a bit better that I'm not just overlooking it or something.