Adding Book covers for eBooks

[sjduesey]

I have been creating audio books from Gutenberg text files now for a couple of years on my Mac, complete with fancy covers to play/display on my iPod, all show up and work just fine. I am now looking to buy an iPad, to add the reading experience to my book pleasures and have got 30 or so uPub books down for a starter. I have them all in Calibre but cannot find a button for adding covers to each of them. I have created book cover jpg’s for these, the same as for the audio books, Is there a way of adding these to each of the books in Calibre - or is this undertaken in iTunes or another application before moving them to the iPad?

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by sjduesey

I have been creating audio books from Gutenberg text files now for a couple of years on my Mac, complete with fancy covers to play/display on my iPod, all show up and work just fine. I am now looking to buy an iPad, to add the reading experience to my book pleasures and have got 30 or so uPub books down for a starter. I have them all in Calibre but cannot find a button for adding covers to each of them. I have created book cover jpg’s for these, the same as for the audio books, Is there a way of adding these to each of the books in Calibre - or is this undertaken in iTunes or another application before moving them to the iPad?

I have not had a need to add my own book covers (the ones I get when doing a metadata search for covers is adequate for me) but I'm certain I have read that it is possible...I would recommend reposting in the Calibre section of this forum. People are very helpful there and can likely point you in the right direction. Welcome to the forum!!

[GMRabelink]

Originally Posted by sjduesey

I have been creating audio books from Gutenberg text files now for a couple of years on my Mac, complete with fancy covers to play/display on my iPod, all show up and work just fine. I am now looking to buy an iPad, to add the reading experience to my book pleasures and have got 30 or so uPub books down for a starter. I have them all in Calibre but cannot find a button for adding covers to each of them. I have created book cover jpg’s for these, the same as for the audio books, Is there a way of adding these to each of the books in Calibre - or is this undertaken in iTunes or another application before moving them to the iPad?

Hi Sjduesey,
You can add a cover to your book with the 'Edit metadata'-functionality of Calibre.
When in the 'Edit metadata'-screen, just click 'Browse' in the section 'Change cover'. You can then pick any image on your computer and use that as a cover.

Good luck!

[HarryT]

Please ask Calibre questions in the Calibre forum. I'm moving this thread there.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by sjduesey

I have been creating audio books from Gutenberg text files now for a couple of years on my Mac, complete with fancy covers to play/display on my iPod, all show up and work just fine. I am now looking to buy an iPad, to add the reading experience to my book pleasures and have got 30 or so uPub books down for a starter. I have them all in Calibre but cannot find a button for adding covers to each of them. I have created book cover jpg’s for these, the same as for the audio books, Is there a way of adding these to each of the books in Calibre - or is this undertaken in iTunes or another application before moving them to the iPad?

There are many ways to add covers to books in Calibre.

If you have the covers: Any place you see the undesired cover, just Drag the one you want onto the one shown in Calibre.

If you can't find a cover: Calibre will make a Generic cover with the Title. Just open the Metadata editor and click "Generate Cover", then save.

Want to get artsy? Add in the Generate (your design) Cover plugin

[sjduesey]

Thank you all - cover problem solved.

[kyteflyer]

More on covers. Is there a way to embed the cover and the downloaded metadata in the epub file? If you do a save to disk, it saves the epub but the metadata and cover are not included... so sideloading into an application which cant talk to calibre is fraught with annoyance.

[speakingtohe]

More on covers. Is there a way to embed the cover and the downloaded metadata in the epub file? If you do a save to disk, it saves the epub but the metadata and cover are not included... so sideloading into an application which cant talk to calibre is fraught with annoyance.

Pretty sure they are included.

Still you can convert epub to epub first to make doubly sure.

Helen

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

More on covers. Is there a way to embed the cover and the downloaded metadata in the epub file? If you do a save to disk, it saves the epub but the metadata and cover are not included... so sideloading into an application which cant talk to calibre is fraught with annoyance.

It sounds as if you might perhaps be copying books directly from the Calibre library folder? If do, don't do that. If you do either a "save to disk" or a "send to device", you will get the changed metadata. If, however, you change the cover, you may need to do an ePub to ePub conversion to make the new cover "stick".

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

More on covers. Is there a way to embed the cover and the downloaded metadata in the epub file? If you do a save to disk, it saves the epub but the metadata and cover are not included... so sideloading into an application which cant talk to calibre is fraught with annoyance.

Using the Save to disk feature will embed the metadata and possibly update the cover. If the cover was properly identified within the epub then it will be updated via the Save to disk feature. The 2 other files you see (cover.jpg and metadata.opf) are optional depending upon your settings in the Save to disk preferences area.

As HarryT states grabbing books via a file manager will not have the metadata updated. You can do as Helen says and do a ePub to ePub conversion to ensure all of the data is in the copy internal to the library. Another alternative would be the Modify ePub plugin to embed the metadata and possibly update the cover.

Good Luck.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by theducks

Want to get artsy? Add in the Generate (your design) Cover plugin

Thanks, this is just what I was looking for!