Getting thumbnail covers on Sony

[Afrosheen]

Has anyone have trouble having covers changed with this plugin show up correctly on Sony ereaders? I used this plugin, yet the covers that show up on my ereader show the original covers rather than the covers I changed them to with this plugin.

I do not wish to convert the books EPUB to EPUB, so I'm hoping there's something I'm doing wrong that could be fixed.

Thanks for the consideration.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Afrosheen

Has anyone have trouble having covers changed with this plugin show up correctly on Sony ereaders? I used this plugin, yet the covers that show up on my ereader show the original covers rather than the covers I changed them to with this plugin.

Did you delete the books from your reader and resend the fixed books?

[Afrosheen]

Yes, I even cleared the entire library on my second attempt. Though I need to qualify this that the Modify plugin helps replace some covers, but not for others. I can't figure out why.

[kiwidude]

If after using the Insert/replace cover option of this plugin (for which there are no known cases of it *not* putting a cover into an ePub) you will see the cover in the ebook using the calibre viewer. Anything outside of that in terms of what you see on your device is nothing to do with this plugin.

[Afrosheen]

Yea I believe you're correct. I went ahead and did the unthinkable of converting EPUB to EPUB on the books that I had trouble replacing covers and my reader still had trouble rendering the covers and thumbnails. I just can't explain why.

[kiwidude]

I suggest you go hunting in the Devices subforum, as I said it isn't anything to do with this plugin which does its job of inserting the cover into the book and setting necessary metadata to identify it. I don't use a Sony ereader myself to give you a direct answer. Good luck....

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Afrosheen

Yea I believe you're correct. I went ahead and did the unthinkable of converting EPUB to EPUB on the books that I had trouble replacing covers and my reader still had trouble rendering the covers and thumbnails. I just can't explain why.

If it's the Sony thumbnails which are not displaying correctly (rather than page 1 of the epub) then you need to look at your settings in the Sony device driver, i.e. Prefs - Plugins - Device Interface - Sony - Customise

There are 2 checkboxes:

1. Upload separate cover thumbnails
2. Refresh separate covers when using automatic management

Option 1 will create a thumbnail from the cover set in calibre and send it to the Sony whenever you send a book (any format) to your device. It ignores whatever cover may actually be inside the book - epub in your case.

Option 2 goes a step further and will refresh all your thumbnails every single time you connect the device, i.e. no books need to be sent. The refreshed thumbnails are created from the cover you currently have set in calibre at the time you connect. Once again, any cover inside the book is ignored. Option 2 will only work if you have set Prefs - Sending books to device - Metadata management to Automatic.

Option 2 ensures that your Sony and calibre are always in sync as regards thumbnails but may take a long time to run every time you connect if you have a lot of books on your device.

Option 1 is faster but only sends the thumbnail when you send-to-device.

Take your pick

A reasonable compromise is to choose Option 2, connect your device to get everything in sync, then after you've disconnected go back to Option 1.

[JSWolf]

I've never had a problem with the cover on my 650. I do not have either of the thumbnail options check for the Sony driver for my 650.

What I suggest is to take the cover image of an ePub that's not properly displaying and load it into an image editor and resave it as an RGB jpeg.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've never had a problem with the cover on my 650. I do not have either of the thumbnail options check for the Sony driver for my 650.

What I suggest is to take the cover image of an ePub that's not properly displaying and load it into an image editor and resave it as an RGB jpeg.

Perhaps you only ever send non-DRM epubs which already have your chosen cover as page 1. In this case you don't have to check either of the boxes because the Sony will automatically create its own thumbnail from the internal cover.

The device driver checkboxes are particularly helpful for:

• DRM'd books with rubbish internal covers
• PDF, RTF, TXT format books
• people who frequently change some of their calibre covers and don't want to have to resend their books to copy the new covers across.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Perhaps you only ever send non-DRM epubs which already have your chosen cover as page 1. In this case you don't have to check either of the boxes because the Sony will automatically create its own thumbnail from the internal cover.

The device driver checkboxes are particularly helpful for:

• DRM'd books with rubbish internal covers
• PDF, RTF, TXT format books
• people who frequently change some of their calibre covers and don't want to have to resend their books to copy the new covers across.

The reason I suggested the cover image could be the problem is because Afrosheen has tried ePub > ePub and has had failure there and because he's able to convert the ePub, that means it's not DRM getting in the way.

[jackie_w]

My original response to Afrosheen was purely about making sure the Sony thumbnails were correct regardless of what cover is inside each book. Your response implied that the Sony device driver thumbnail options weren't useful. Perhaps I misread your intent.

Your suggestion re: the image editor may well be good advice if forcing a correct page-1 cover is essential for other purposes, e.g so it can be used as a current-book-screensaver.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

My original response to Afrosheen was purely about making sure the Sony thumbnails were correct regardless of what cover is inside each book. Your response implied that the Sony device driver thumbnail options weren't useful. Perhaps I misread your intent.

Your suggestion re: the image editor may well be good advice if forcing a correct page-1 cover is essential for other purposes, e.g so it can be used as a current-book-screensaver.

I wasn't saying your thumbnail settings idea was a bad idea. I was saying I don't use the thumbnail settings because I've never had a cover issue with my 650 that wasn't due to a problem with the cover image. For example, a CMYK saved JPG is an issue.

Making sure the cover image options are correct and then saving as JPG is the way to do it.

[Afrosheen]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

If it's the Sony thumbnails which are not displaying correctly (rather than page 1 of the epub) then you need to look at your settings in the Sony device driver, i.e. Prefs - Plugins - Device Interface - Sony - Customise

There are 2 checkboxes:

1. Upload separate cover thumbnails
2. Refresh separate covers when using automatic management

Option 1 will create a thumbnail from the cover set in calibre and send it to the Sony whenever you send a book (any format) to your device. It ignores whatever cover may actually be inside the book - epub in your case.

Option 2 goes a step further and will refresh all your thumbnails every single time you connect the device, i.e. no books need to be sent. The refreshed thumbnails are created from the cover you currently have set in calibre at the time you connect. Once again, any cover inside the book is ignored. Option 2 will only work if you have set Prefs - Sending books to device - Metadata management to Automatic.

Option 2 ensures that your Sony and calibre are always in sync as regards thumbnails but may take a long time to run every time you connect if you have a lot of books on your device.

Option 1 is faster but only sends the thumbnail when you send-to-device.

Take your pick

A reasonable compromise is to choose Option 2, connect your device to get everything in sync, then after you've disconnected go back to Option 1.

Thank you! This solved every problem, including both thumbnails and covers. Thank you for going out of your way to inform me of this.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Afrosheen

Thank you! This solved every problem, including both thumbnails and covers. Thank you for going out of your way to inform me of this.

Have you tried fixing the cover image? That would be an overall better solution if it works.

[kiwidude]

Moderator Notice
I have moved these posts out of the Modify ePub plugin thread as they have nothing to do with that plugin