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Old 11-14-2012, 03:01 PM   #1
purplepancake
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Book Cover not displaying

Hi
Looking for some help please - not sure if this is just Paperwhite or all Kindles? Apologies if posted in wrong place or asked before......... but

Have very recently got hold of a Paperwhite - already own a number of ebooks in mobi or epub format so have used calibre, where necessary, to convert to mobi and then have transferred via usb to the Kindle. So far so good, can read the books all fine ........... but

The book covers do not show, even though they are embedded in each file. I've also in frustration added separate jpegs for each cover to each folder - all to no avail?

A stupid question perhaps but do they have to be B&W or grayscale and is the Kindle sensitive to size? They are all 600x800 which appears to be the standard.

Is there a 'naming' requirement?

Anyone else had this or know the answers please, would be much obliged for some help.
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Old 11-14-2012, 03:05 PM   #2
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Old 11-14-2012, 03:59 PM   #3
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Thanks Peter
Will be redoing a few and trying again - perhaps tomorrow, head hurts and I still have to read a book !!
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Old 11-14-2012, 04:11 PM   #4
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Old 11-14-2012, 05:55 PM   #5
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You didn't mention exactly how you sent your files, so I'll also add that you'll need a somewhat recent version of Calibre for the side-loading of the cover thumbnails to work properly when using 'Send To Device' with a PaperWhite .
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Old 11-15-2012, 09:03 AM   #6
purplepancake
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Hi
transferred via usb to the Kindle..
Sorry but what else is there to tell you? Oh calibre 0.9.6

Since yesterday I've spent a good few hours converting - trying lots of methods given on this site.

Now have a book cover as per the original BUT has a white flash across the base of the book that says 'Personal' in it !!??
Furthermore having changed the pic size to 600x800mm it still shows in a reduced size compared to books purchased from Amazon.

So, someone, anyone, please explain in very simple language, step by step, if possible as to WTF I'm doing wrong?

Never had this much grief with a piece of plastic tech b4 - been reading ebooks for more years than my eyes care to remember, starting with a Palm - never was it this much hassle - and I simply refuse to repurchase books that I already own !!

Last edited by purplepancake; 11-15-2012 at 09:21 AM.
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Old 11-15-2012, 11:58 AM   #7
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@purplepancake:

Let's take it from the top:

1/ Delete the wonky books you have on right now (either via the UI, or over USB).
2/ If you deleted manually over USB, also remove the corresponding thumbnails in the system/thumbnails folder.
3/ If you manually deleted over USB, unplug & eject once before going any further, to let the Kindle catch up and update its internal catalog.

4/ Make sure your stuff was converted *without* the 'Enable sharing' in the MOBI output settings, and that the tag set to trigger the PDOC flag isn't part of the tags of your books. Reconvert if needed.
5/ Send books via Calibre's "Send To Device".
6/ Unplug & eject. You get covers & no PDOC banner. If you still get a PDOC banner, check 4/.
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Old 11-15-2012, 04:48 PM   #8
purplepancake
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@NiLuJe

Thanks for the help.

You might find this hard to believe - I do, but I've done exactly that - all the steps.

And thanks, yes the covers are visible BUT still have the white banner over the foot of the cover saying Personal.

Additionally the covers are smaller than the native Kindle covers - this is not really an issue but the banner is a pain that I would love to get rid of.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

Am now considering stripping the meta data on each book and re-inserting. This was mentioned on a Linux site and at the moment I need to do some more investigating as I cannot see how it would cross over.
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Old 11-15-2012, 06:06 PM   #9
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@purplepancake: If you end up with smaller covers and a PDOC banner, it means that your files don't have an ASIN set (exth 113) in the metadata, which, if you're using Calibre to build your mobi/azw3, means they were built *WITH* the 'Enable sharing' setting checked. (If those files were built by KindleGen, on the other hand, then it's perfectly normal. Convert via Calibre, of tweak the metadata manually to add an ASIN [I think there's a plugin for that, used by some Fire users [It's a feature of the Quality Check plugin, I think?]]).

Check that your files were built properly (*without* 'Enable sharing') (you can even go so far as to check the metadata of the files on your device with MobiUnpack if you're still not convinced), and that you're using Calibre's "Send To Device" over USB in a recent Calibre version.

(Don't forget the delete/unplug thing if you're doing this on the same books over and over, the Kindle gets confused (and breaks the thumbnails, basically) when you switch files without letting it know they were gone first).

Last edited by NiLuJe; 11-15-2012 at 06:10 PM.
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Old 11-16-2012, 05:47 AM   #10
purplepancake
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@NiLuJe

Many thanks - I'll go back to the beginning and re-visit each step.

Sounds spot on - I did not check/change the ASIN.
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Old 11-20-2012, 06:19 PM   #11
purplepancake
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Revisit: Book Cover not displaying

Ok, the struggle continues - now faced with a full sized generic cover, no white banner at foot, instead white box central giving the title and Author info. The book opens and functions - though I haven't checked the bookmark.

To get here I did the following - so Please if you see an error/omission point it out - or obviously a better way to achieve a full sized cover, no banner etc or as it should be !!

Steps taken:

Started by removing/deleting all? traces of earlier attempts on the Kindle and also scrubbed the calibre library on the pc.

Used Mobi MetaData to change/add the ASIN (nb deleted existing one that was very long and bore no similarity to the Amazon Kindle ASIN).
Left in the ISBN was this correct?

Converted in calibre 0.9.6:
In 'Meta Data' removed existing cover and pointed to new cover which was/is 600x800 pixels, jpg, same as original just added a serial number of my own. Displays in calibre no prob and has previously displayed on the paperwhite albeit with the banner.

Conversion was mobi input to mobi output - used 'page setup' to change setting to paperwhite as output.
In 'mobi output'
Used 'both'.
Did not select 'share'
Did change to [EBOK]

Then converted and 'sent to machine main memory' via USB cable.....

I think that was all the steps.

As a small sidebar is there a difference between sending to the Kindle and simply dragging/pasting the file, as in another drive on the system? Does the 'send to' actually do something other than just act as a transfer method?

Thanks in anticipation.
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Old 11-20-2012, 07:49 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
Started by removing/deleting all? traces of earlier attempts on the Kindle and also scrubbed the calibre library on the pc.
How? If you did it from anywhere else than the device itself, eject & let your Kindle update its catalog before doing anything else.

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
Used Mobi MetaData to change/add the ASIN (nb deleted existing one that was very long and bore no similarity to the Amazon Kindle ASIN).
Left in the ISBN was this correct?
Nope, an ASIN is not an ISBN. (And the Calibre UUID you deleted is fine if you use Calibre's Send To Device).

(And which file did you edit? If you edited the file on your device, that explains everything: don't.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
In 'Meta Data' removed existing cover and pointed to new cover which was/is 600x800 pixels, jpg, same as original just added a serial number of my own.
Serial number? Huh?

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
Conversion was mobi input to mobi output - used 'page setup' to change setting to paperwhite as output.
In 'mobi output'
Used 'both'.
Did not select 'share'
If you only have KF8 capable devices, and don't care about portability, output to AZW3, you'll end up with smaller files.

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
Did change to [EBOK]
Useless, just set it to a a string that you're pretty sure will never be used in a tag (personally, I'm using something in the vein of +PDOC, but that's because I actually rely on it sometimes, but that's another subject).

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
As a small sidebar is there a difference between sending to the Kindle and simply dragging/pasting the file, as in another drive on the system? Does the 'send to' actually do something other than just act as a transfer method?
Yes, it actually sideloads the thumbnails. Hence my insistence on telling you to use Calibre's "Send To Device".

Last edited by NiLuJe; 11-20-2012 at 07:51 PM.
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Old 11-21-2012, 04:36 AM   #13
purplepancake
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Quote:
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How? If you did it from anywhere else than the device itself, eject & let your Kindle update its catalog before doing anything else.
Yes, it was ejected, then after a couple of minutes reconnected.


Quote:
Originally Posted by NiLuJe View Post
Nope, an ASIN is not an ISBN. (And the Calibre UUID you deleted is fine if you use Calibre's Send To Device).
No, I know it isn't. ISBN are used with books and ASIN are, I believe, unique to Amazon and more commonly used on items other than books. So could there be a conflict or is it ok to have both?
And Yes I used send to device.

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Originally Posted by NiLuJe View Post
(And which file did you edit? If you edited the file on your device, that explains everything: don't.)
No file was edited off the paperwhite at all times.


Quote:
Originally Posted by NiLuJe View Post
Serial number? Huh?
Sorry should have made this clearer - the book in question is one of a series. I wanted a visual as to which order they are read in. So I edited the jpg to add a 'number' visually in the image so to speak. Edited pics before for this reason and never had a problem.


Quote:
Originally Posted by NiLuJe View Post
If you only have KF8 capable devices, and don't care about portability, output to AZW3, you'll end up with smaller files.
Ok thanks for the tip



Quote:
Originally Posted by NiLuJe View Post
Useless, just set it to a a string that you're pretty sure will never be used in a tag (personally, I'm using something in the vein of +PDOC, but that's because I actually rely on it sometimes, but that's another subject).
Ok - but other links on this site disagree here - but I'm happy to try it your way. Up to getting the paperwhite I've always left this alone and would use [PDOC]


Quote:
Originally Posted by NiLuJe View Post
Yes, it actually sideloads the thumbnails. Hence my insistence on telling you to use Calibre's "Send To Device".
Ok - so I assume that calibre produces the thumbnail? If so where is it stored/filed on the paperwhite or is it embedded in the mobi. Are you in fact calling the cover a thumbnail or is this a secondary item?

As a matter of interest only, what is the difference between 'sending to' and dragging or pasting the mobi to the paperwhite, the end result is that it bypasses the Amazon servers but what else happens?

"Send to device" used since you first insisted.

Thanks again for your time.
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Old 11-21-2012, 07:39 AM   #14
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@purplepancake:

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
No, I know it isn't. ISBN are used with books and ASIN are, I believe, unique to Amazon and more commonly used on items other than books. So could there be a conflict or is it ok to have both?
Basically, what I meant was don't manually tweak the ASIN in the metadata field (exth 113) unless you know exactly what you're doing and what it entails .

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
Ok - but other links on this site disagree here - but I'm happy to try it your way.
Yeah, I know, but I insist . You're welcome to check Calibre's sources to understand how it works in more details .

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
Ok - so I assume that calibre produces the thumbnail? If so where is it stored/filed on the paperwhite or is it embedded in the mobi. Are you in fact calling the cover a thumbnail or is this a secondary item?
Yes, Calibre generates it from the current cover in Calibre's metadata for this book. There's actually two of them, one embedded, and one sideloaded. The one we usually care about on the PW is the external one (it's used when exth 113 is set), and is stored in system/thumbnails/ on the Touch/PaperWhite. The other one, the embedded one, is nothing new, hand has been part of the MOBI format for a good long while AFAIK. It's only used on the Touch/PW when exth 113 isn't set (ie. a file built by KindleGen, or by Calibre with the 'enable sharing' setting enabled) [no exth 113 is also what triggers the PDOC banner on the PaperWhite, even if the cdetype isn't PDOC]. In both cases, it is in fact a thumbnail, the full size cover is separate.

Quote:
Originally Posted by purplepancake View Post
As a matter of interest only, what is the difference between 'sending to' and dragging or pasting the mobi to the paperwhite, the end result is that it bypasses the Amazon servers but what else happens?
When you sideload manually, you're basically just dropping the mobi file 'as-is' straight out of the build process (be it from Calibre or KG). On the other hand, Calibre's "Send to Device" will do more than that: it will refresh the metadata (embedded cover & thumbnail included) in the file, and will also, depending on the device & settings, send some sidecar files: usually, the APNX file for the page numbers, and the external thumbnail on the Touch/PW.

Last edited by NiLuJe; 11-21-2012 at 07:42 AM.
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Old 11-21-2012, 06:29 PM   #15
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Thanks @NiLuJe - nearly there !!

Quote:
Originally Posted by NiLuJe View Post
@purplepancake:

Basically, what I meant was don't manually tweak the ASIN in the metadata field (exth 113) unless you know exactly what you're doing and what it entails .

Not sure I know what I'm doing all the time but went ahead and deleted the old ASIN and copied in the new one.

Yeah, I know, but I insist . You're welcome to check Calibre's sources to understand how it works in more details .

Yes OK I need to read more - I'm spending far too long hacking around in the grey arts !!

Yes, Calibre generates it from the current cover in Calibre's metadata for this book. There's actually two of them, one embedded, and one sideloaded. The one we usually care about on the PW is the external one (it's used when exth 113 is set), and is stored in system/thumbnails/ on the Touch/PaperWhite. The other one, the embedded one, is nothing new, hand has been part of the MOBI format for a good long while AFAIK. It's only used on the Touch/PW when exth 113 isn't set (ie. a file built by KindleGen, or by Calibre with the 'enable sharing' setting enabled) [no exth 113 is also what triggers the PDOC banner on the PaperWhite, even if the cdetype isn't PDOC]. In both cases, it is in fact a thumbnail, the full size cover is separate.

Ok thanks for the explanation - makes a lot more sense now

When you sideload manually, you're basically just dropping the mobi file 'as-is' straight out of the build process (be it from Calibre or KG). On the other hand, Calibre's "Send to Device" will do more than that: it will refresh the metadata (embedded cover & thumbnail included) in the file, and will also, depending on the device & settings, send some sidecar files: usually, the APNX file for the page numbers, and the external thumbnail on the Touch/PW.
Ok yes I follow that, thought it had to do something more meaningful than I'd imagined ........

and now drum roll it all works, the right size, no banners at foot or middle.

Many thanks for all your help.

BTW I picked up from somewhere that the jpeg size on the kpw should be 600x800 - well after a fair bit of trial and error this needs to be bigger, or it will affect the cover size on the Home 'page' etc which was part of my 'problem'.
I'm suggesting 960x1280 as being good for most purposes.

Anyway in the end, with your help, I got there, once again thanks for your help - it has been much appreciated by me and who knows maybe of equal help to others passing as well.

So now ........... for a change !!

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