Cover Image size?????

[Nigelinspain]

I have just loaded my cover image into Sigil to produce my epub file. I size of the cover image I loaded is 1600 x 2400 pixals.

But when I look at the cover in both Sigil and Adobe Digital Editions I can only see the top left hand corner of the image.

Obviously this is because it is far to big, but what is the best image size to use for a cover so that it shows the full page size?

[Pablo]

See this thread: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=207982

[Derek R]

Yes, the code that Pablo supplied in the thread he has directed you to works perfectly. All you need to do is change the dimensions in the example to those of your cover image (and alter the name of the image file, if needs be).

[Nigelinspain]

Ok that´s great. Thanks for the help.

[JSWolf]

If this is for an eBook for sale, some older devices might not like a cover image that large.

[Derek R]

Do you mean that the svg wouldn't automatically reduce the absolute dimensions of the cover in older devices, or that the file size might be too large? The latter is something I considered posting about as I've been trying to find an answer to that very issue today. Would 0.25mb or 0.5mb be safe enough?

[Jellby]

Some devices may even crash when trying to open the book. Others will simply show a blank page or refuse to open the book.

[JSWolf]

Older devices have a limited amount of memory and a slower processor. So the cover could be too large to allow the ePub to properly display and Jellby is correct in some of what could happen.

I have used a cover images of 1024 lines with no problems on a Sony Reader PRS-500.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Some devices may even crash when trying to open the book. Others will simply show a blank page or refuse to open the book.

I found that my older Sony readers (350 & 950) did not care for very large cover images. They did not crash or refuse to open the book, but just showed a blank page. They do fine with images 2048 x 1200 pixels though.

[JSWolf]

I'll have to give my 650 a stress test to see what it can handle for some overly large cover image size.

[Ripplinger]

I never use anything within a book larger than 800x600 for a few reasons. It suits most ereaders nicely and any reader should be able to scale it to fit full screen even if their resolution is 1024x768 or larger for tablets with the correct code. Even if some device is capable of displaying a larger image, the cover isn't the main point, the text of the book is.

The size of the image file itself won't be as large. Nothing annoys me more than an epub (which are usually between 250-600kb in total size) that is over 2MB in size because the cover is over 1MB. Even if you do go with a larger image, just please remember to compress it with a decent graphic program. If done correctly, you won't even see the difference but will reduce the file size to as little as 12% of what it originally was, dropping it down from over 1MB to 100kb.

Not all readers have slots for SD cards, so we don't have unlimited space.

[mrmikel]

For my 300 it needs images which are shy a bit of those maximums to keep them from spilling onto the next page covering the text.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

For my 300 it needs images which are shy a bit of those maximums to keep them from spilling onto the next page covering the text.

Your 300 could easily use covers images larger the the screen's resolution. It's the code that displays the cover that tells the image to be resized to fit.